I'm a Lutheran pastor with a bachelors degree in math and economics to go with a masters and Ph.D. in religion. Like Marcy and others here at Emptywheel, I've got a lot of experience in the close reading of various texts, whether religious texts, legal opinions, political speeches, or governmental regulations. Years ago, before it was a dirty word, I was an intern at the State Department. While my career path took me into the ministry rather than the Foreign Service, I continue to follow the ins and outs of international affairs. For several years, I also regularly blogged at Firedoglake on religion and politics, foreign affairs, and just about anything else that caught my attention, and am delighted to return to blogging here at Emptywheel.
Since high school, I worked on a number of campaigns, from local school board stuff to Paul Simon’s presidential campaign and a bunch at every level in between. One thing I’ve never forgotten is simple: read the election law. With all the “will we have a winner on Election Night?” blather, it seems few in the media have bothered to do that one very simple thing.
I went to bed in tears last night.
They weren’t tears of pain or shock or outrage. They were the tears you cry when the last of your grandparents “goes home.” They’re the tears of grief at the loss you’ve suffered, and the tears that say “It’s your turn now.” You have to tell the stories you learned at their knees, as you go on to make a difference in the lives of others as they made a difference in your life.
I’m still in tears this morning, because I’ve got lots of stories to tell.
Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” is more than 50 years old, yet it reads like it was written yesterday. In that letter, King identified “the great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom” not as the hoodwearing Klanners or the poltically powerful White Citizens Council folks, but the Moderate. Fortunately, King also identfied the cure to that block, if only we’d embrace it.
John Lewis has been a fighter his whole life long. He is the last living member of the Big Six, the speakers at the 1963 March on Washington for civil rights, and now is a senior member of Congress fighting pancreatic cancer. But it’s important to remember that John Lewis was not always old.
If burning sources that lie to you is not a cardinal rule of journalism, it damn well ought to be. I suspect that Marcy’s honest sources will respect her more for this, and her dishonest ones will be very very nervous. Isn’t that something that all journalists ought to strive for? Sullivan lauded Marcy for being a journalist with a conscience — which she is, but that’s not the point here. The point is that Marcy is a journalist with a spine.