Chris Matthews and Chris Wallace each earned a (mythical) Reinhold Niebuhr award* for bringing good temper and integrity into the political fight. The highest level of political ethics is to call out members of one’s own party, or people whose politics you’re in general sympathy with. We expect to see MSNBC commentators like Matthews ripping Republicans, just as we expect to see Fox News commentators like Wallace ripping Dems. Ho hum, no surprise there, and no contribution to the integrity of the political fight.
But when California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina came on Fox News Sunday Wallace grilled her about her plan to close California’s huge budget gap, finally exposing her as an empty suit. And when Kentucky Democratic Senate Candidate Jack Conway came on Chris Matthews’ Hardball show, Matthews grilled him about his campaign ad questioning his opponent’s Christianity, exposing Conway’s ad as baseless and scurrilous.
Our civic society is being ripped by the bitter antagonism between left and right, the worst since the bad old days of Senator Joe McCarthy, red hunts, and leftish defenses of Soviet spies. It’s made worse by the ease of getting all one’s news from a kind of “Daily Me,” an assortment of media that reflect only one’s own bias. Fox News Sunday and MSNBC’s Hardball took a step away from the cartoonish view of them as mouthpieces for liberalism and conservatism. The two Chris’s interviews are in the highest traditions of Niebuhr’s goal of a healthy society.
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*Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, ‘The temper of and integrity with which the political fight is waged is more important for the health of our society than the outcome of any issue or campaign.”
Tags: Carly Fiorina, Chris Matthews, Chris Wallace, Daily Me, Fox News, Fox News Sunday, Hardball, Jack Conway, MSNBC, political ethics, Reinhold Niebuhr, Senator Joe McCarthy
Ethics Bob 
October 18, 2010 at 7:22 pm |
Great choices, Bob. And not really surprises, either. Wallace is the class of Fox, and as much as a dyed-in-wool Tip O’Neill Democrat as Matthews is, he has integrity, and times like this show it. And there are few tragets as deserving as Fiorina and Conway. Unfortunatly, neither of their opponents are much better.
October 18, 2010 at 7:23 pm |
That was “targets” and “Unfortunately”
October 18, 2010 at 10:20 pm |
I had one meeting with Boxer when I was a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense. She invited me to meet with her about helping a constituent who had bought property from DOD that he later learned was contaminated. She wanted me to authorize DOD funds to clean it up–authority I had. I explained to her that DOD policy (which I set) was against it she immediately understood and assured me that she didn’t want nor expect me to do anything to contravene the policy.
I thought that was ethical behavior on her part, and I’ve been a fan ever since.