The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
Character: I
: If all goes according to plan, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s op-ed page will be reprinting my post about character as a nonissue today.
Very cool that the Inquirer quotes from blogs every Wednesday. That’s the ticket: Listen to the people.
[And, hello, Philadelphians. I can’t let this opportunity pass without giving my sister, the Rev. Cynthia Jarvis at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian, a plug.]
: UPDATE: It’s in the paper.
And this differs from letters to the editor in what way?
Maybe character doesn’t matter–I fail to believe that–character is whom you are. Without character, you’re just an amoeba. Even a cat has character.
But forget character–it is foreign policy that worries me–are you willing to fight a sensitive terrorist war? And are you willing to have the Communists run your country?
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/002325.php
Dude, you are not “the people”, you are the media elite, however much you care to blog these days. Can’t fight your own biography.
You start out with an interesting and insightful commentary, but the whole thing falls apart in
#6, where you allege that morality is a proxy for religion, and religion mixed with government is
“scary”. Well, morality isn’t a proxy for religion. One can be moral without being religious (and sadly, vice versa). The importance of morality or character can’t be discounted just because you tie it to religion or because many split hairs over character issues.
To attempt to diminish the importance of character is a dangerous gambit. Our political system today gives an inordinate and ever-increasing amount of power to the government. The only thing keeping politicians from abusing that power is morality. It’s no wonder people charge that Mr. Bush lies or Mr. Kerry waffles, lacks vision and is unfit to serve. The left attempts to legislate morality out of sight, and the right tries to legislate it into law. Both approaches are excessive, but this doesn’t change the fact that morality is crucial to the continued success of this country and its government. With that in mind, keeping the character issue on the frontline of political debate is a good thing. The tenor of the debate will only be calmed when the left and the right take a more moderate approach to legislating morality, while recognizing that character still counts.
Your blog post in print is very cool Jeff!
Character is everything. If the man has no character, how do you know what he will do in office?
It is apparent that Jeff’s post-9-11 liberal-been-mugged outlook has worn off. That’s a shame. He used to have so much good to say.