The Bible says, “By thy fruits shall ye know them.” We know politicians by heroes. John F.Kennedy’s was Winston Churchill; George McGovern’s, Adlai Stevenson; Richard Nixon, Woodrow Wilson. Heroes reflect who we are and/or admire.
In 1961, John F. Kennedy held a post-Bay of Pigs news conference musing that “victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.” He was to blame, said JFK. Who is culpable for this month’s Republican collapse?
Discourse with an edge coarsens today’s uncultured culture. Do anything but bore. The wiseacre deserves praise, not bile. Welcome to our me-first cesspool age.
Yogi Berra said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Recently, two parties came to a fork on civil rights. One road unites America. The other divides by race. Juan Williams prefers the former. Many school districts clearly like the latter.
Sam Cooke sang, “Don’t know much about history. Don’t know much biology.” Antipodal was an old TV ad: “Bo [Jackson] knows baseball.” Sadly, football’s Heisman Trophy honoree went belly up in the bigs.
In television’s “Jesus of Nazareth,” Judas betrays the Man from Galilee. A Roman soldier asks, “What kind of person are you, if I may ask?” His query is universal — since what we are dwarfs what we have.
CBS TV’s Mike Wallace, 87, has interviewed hundreds of people: Eleanor Roosevelt, JFK and LBJ, beloved Ike. Recently he named the one person he hoped, but failed, to interview: the First Lady whose Secret Service code was “Starlight.”
