You'll note our attention to detail, but 2019 isn't 1975. Some of the sexual harassment you'd see on an old MAS*H rerun wouldn't go today. There was a time when what was considered respectable was uglier and dumber than today. Try watching Johnny Carson interview Dolly Parton or Robin Williams do his over-the-top gay man routine.
And not just entertainment has changed. So have sports, business and politics. America has changed. There are many of us who stand astride the world yelling stop, but it never seems to listen.
There are those who don't recognize that the changes over the years have been as gradual as they were necessary. And they judge the past on 2019's social mores. This is a mistake. As national columnist Bret Stephens once put it on these pages, if you want to judge people on what they did 30 or 40 years ago, let's start with what you did 30 or 40 years ago. Would any of us be comfortable with that?
It wasn't all that long ago that Barack Obama said that marriage should be between one man and one woman. Things change. It wasn't all that long ago that homosexuals weren't allowed in the Army. Things change. We still have a year to go before we celebrate 100 years since women got the right to vote in this country. Things change.
But there is a particular self-serving kind of up-and-comer--usually young, but not always--who'd make bygone fashion and past practice Exhibits No. 1 & 2 in the case for banishment against heretics. Former unbelievers, or maybe just former agnostics, would be deemed unworthy of redemption, without the possibility of salvation.
Today's example: Joe Biden.
The unfortunate Mr. Biden is the front runner for the Democratic nomination for president. But worse than that, he's been in Congress since 1972, and must pay for the crime of having once been alive in the year 1972. Nixon was in the White House. Sitcoms used the N-word. Bell bottoms were fashionable. Joe Biden must pay.
The former vice president also tends to speak his mind without running his words by his press people, which might remind you of somebody else.
The other day, Joe Biden said his career has been marked by the ability to get along with people in the United States Senate that he didn't necessarily like. He invoked a couple of segregationists whose names might be lost to history by now, and deservedly so. He said he had to caucus with a few of these people.
"Well guess what?" Joe Biden said. "At least there was some civility. We got things done. We didn't agree on much of anything. We got things done. We got it finished. But today you look at the other side and you're the enemy. Not the opposition, the enemy. We don't talk to each other anymore."
Cue the outrage.
Other would-be nominees are demanding he apologize. He hasn't yet, as of this writing, but the first debates are this week, so keep an eye out. There would be nothing surprising about the party, his handlers and maybe his former boss browbeating him into a tearful Divine Revelation.
The latest to demand an apology is Bernie Sanders. You'll recall that Uncle Bernie spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union. Dabbling with the commies is one thing, being civil to Southern senators in the 1970s is something else.
Things may have gone beyond can-civility-survive. These days, the question might be: Can civility be forgiven? In today's America, compromise is an ugly word. No matter how much it was practiced by our Founders. Can you imagine where this country would be if Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton never compromised, insisting on complete wins or Give Me Death? Our considered editorial opinion: There wouldn't be a country at all.
To some candidates, civility isn't a viable option. And if anybody had ever shown it--what the Brits call good form, what the Yankees call good sportsmanship--he must repent. Not that he'd be forgiven. But he must ask for forgiveness anyway, so that his betters can deny it.
Moral of the story: This lowering of the political discourse isn't just a Republican phenomenon. It holds firm in the Democratic Party, too. As much of that party's platform as union favors and abortion on demand. To prove the point, watch how long it takes for Joe Biden to cave to the inquisitors this week. The countdown begins. Four, three, two, one . . . .
Editorial on 06/26/2019