Public television, as well as public radio, get vilified by those who object to a so-called “liberal bias” in both media.
I don’t see it. Then again, perhaps my own bias clouds my vision.
A recent discussion by two noted pundits — one liberal and one conservative — points out, though, that common ground can exist and that two ideological foes can actually agree.
David Brooks, the conservative, writes a column for The New York Times; Mark Shields, the liberal, writes a syndicated column distributed by newspapers around the country.
They took up the issue of President Obama’s speech this past week at the National Prayer Breakfast. Speaking on the PBS NewsHour on Friday, I was struck by Brooks’s comments in particular.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/shields-brooks-politics-vaccination-using-religion-justify-evil-acts/
The president said Christians shouldn’t be too quick to cast stones at Islamic terrorists because Christianity has been used by radicals to do bad things “in the name of Christ.” Obama cited the Crusades and the Inquisition as examples.
Obama’s remarks have drawn considerable fire from the right. Brooks, however, takes a different view:
“I think, if the president had come as an atheist to attack religion and to attack Christianity, the Republicans would have a point. That’s not what a president should be doing.
“But that’s not how he came. He has used that prayer breakfast year after year to talk about his own faith, his own faith journey, his own struggles. He’s used it — he has come as a Christian. And the things he said were things — I have never met a Christian who disagreed with what he issued, that the religion has been perverted, that we have to walk humbly before the face of the lord, that God’s purposes are mysterious to us.
“This is not like some tangential, weird belief. This is at the core of every Christian’s faith and every Jew’s faith. And so what he said was utterly normal and admirable and a recognition of historical fact and an urge towards some humility. And so I thought the protests were manufactured and falsely manufactured.”
This kind of view illustrates, in my opinion, what makes public television so valuable. You do not hear the screamers — on the left or the right — trying to outshout the other side. Oh sure, you have the McLaughlin Group, but even those discussions are mild compared to what one hears on MSNBC or Fox.
As for Brooks and Shields, these two men are known for their agreeable disagreements.
I’ll take that level of civility over the scream fests any day of the week.