The media’s latest authority on civility: Al Sharpton, with David Brooks genuflecting to him

Jonathan L. writes:

I watch Sunday morning talk shows with media round tables as they can be quite illuminating, even if unintentionally. This Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” for example, demonstrated just how great the contempt is in which the media holds conservatives. The topic of the show was “civility” in the wake of the Tucson shooting. In the first half the host cornered Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma into bending the knee by abjuring “extremism” in his own party and thus implicitly accepting that this was somehow a problem. The show then moved on to a panel discussion which included, of all people, Al Sharpton. Sharpton’s role in the Tawana Brawley hoax is, of course, well known. But people often forget his responsibility for the Freddy’s Fashion Mart shooting of 1995. Sharpton had been riling up black mobs against the Jewish owner of the store with talk of “white interlopers” when finally one man barged in, shot several of the employees, and set the store on fire. Several people died in the incident. If this is not a case of yelling “fire” in a crowded theater, of direct instigation, I don’t know what is. Yet there Sharpton was, presiding over a panel on civility and treated by one and all as a reverend fount of spiritual wisdom. David Brooks seemed to take special pleasure from kissing Sharpton’s ring:

MR. BROOKS: I’m, I’m a little more pessimistic. What’s the root of civility? It’s sinfulness. I, I don’t want to get into the reverend’s business here, but …

REV. SHARPTON: It’s all right. It’s Sunday morning. It’s Sunday morning.

MR. BROOKS: But it’s an awareness of how sinned you are, how ignorant you are, how weak you are. And because of those shortcomings, you need the conversation, you need other people to correct you. And we’ve had a culture which has downplayed sin, and therefore people think, “I—my way’s the right way, and 100 percent of what I want, that’s what we should have.”

Here is the transcript.

LA replies:

This is now the second time in his career that David Brooks, a wholly secular figure who in his book Bobos in Paradise idealized “bourgeois bohemians” who work hard by day and go to S&M clubs by night, has waxed “spiritual” and “moral.” The first time was in 2003 when he wrote a treacly column supporting homosexual marriage, on the basis that marriage is a “sacred” and “spiritual” institution which rescues people from mere “contingency” and that therefore homosexual couples must be included in it. And now he’s gone “spiritual” again, arguing that “we,” meaning Republicans and conservatives, are “sinners,” meaning that we are angry and violent, and therefore we require “conversation,” meaning the moral correction of spiritual authorities such as Al Sharpton.

Whenever it comes to the most unworthy and destructive leftist purposes, that’s when Brooks goes “spiritual.”

Bill in Virginia writes:

“… there Sharpton was, presiding over a panel on civility and treated by one and all as a reverend fount of spiritual wisdom. David Brooks seemed to take special pleasure from kissing Sharpton’s ring.”

Even Ann Coulter is fooled.

LA replies:

I’m really disgusted by that. I’m repelled that she would stand next to this evil man for a photo, and obviously is pleased and proud of it, since she posts the photo at her site. But really, nothing about Coulter should surprise me. There’s no there there. She has no principles, let alone conservative principles. She’s a professional “character,” making a career out of her schtick as snarky provoker of liberal rage.

Dan T. writes:

Mr. Brooks’s nostra culpa is what C. S. Lewis cleverly refers to as “the vice of detraction disguised as the virtue of contrition,” where “we” means “us but not me”.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 17, 2011 01:24 PM | Send