Dr. J.'s Commentary: An Absence of Heroes

by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH

When Princess Diana was tragically killed in an automobile accident on August 31, 1997, I was vacationing on Prince Edward Island, Canada. (One does have to note that at least it is likely that the crash was accidental, although some sources believe that it wasn't. What is virtually certain, I have to say as a public health physician, is that if the Princess had been wearing a seat-belt, it is very likely that she would still be with us, unless another accident would have befallen her in the interim.) Watching television that morning and for several days afterwards, one had to be taken with the genuine outpouring of sadness and sympathy that flowed forth all around the world, from people in many, many countries. She was treated as some sort of heroine. And who was Diana? An acknowledged beauty with a marvelous smile, married to the English Prince of Wales, with two even-then handsome sons, one of whom would be a future King of England if the monarchy were to last long enough.

She was also a woman who had been estranged form her husband for some time before they were divorced, had apparently had a number of affairs whilst they were married (as had he, although apparently with only one woman), who had also taken an interest in AIDS in Africa and a number of charities. For some time, she had been a favorite subject for the tabloid press around the world, primarily for her various "social" activities. And here she was being treated as a heroine by many.

A heroine? Oh, really. To me this outpouring signified nothing more than the absence of heroes, true heroes, in our time, not of the military or personal exploit type, but of the political type. When I was young, we did have heroes on the political stage. Not that they were perfect, but in terms of what they accomplished, they were heroes. Without Churchill's leadership, Great Britain might indeed have been defeated by Hitler. Whatever one might think of him otherwise, without Stalin's leadership, the Soviet Union might have fallen to the Nazis as well (and along with it, the rest of the world, whether Great Britain had been able to win the Battle of Britain or not). If the United States had been led in 1941, before December 7, by the Republican/Isolationist favorite Charles Lindbergh, instead of by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the United States might have become a fascist or at least a proto-fascist satellite of Nazi Germany. (What might have happened had the Lindbergh forces won was detailed in a recent novel by Philip Roth, "The Plot Against America." Also in a sense such a scenario was also laid out in a 2005 book by Pat Buchanan entitled "Was World War II Worth It?" See a series of columns of mine on that subject on The Political Junkies.net, starting on May 26, 2005.)

And so, when I saw the outpouring, in this country at least, of true grief among many, especially his fellow journalists, for the passing of Tim Russert, of the upholding of his memory as epitomizing the peak of broadcast journalism, I thought once again of the Absence of Heroes, in the broadcast journalism profession. And we have had them. Edward R. Murrow and the facing down of Joseph R. McCarthy. Walter Cronkite and the turning of the tide in the national opposition against the War on Vietnam. On the War on Iraq, Peter Arnett, the long-time foreign correspondent for CNN, who was fired by them on April 1, 2003 (no foolin') for saying, that early, that the U.S. War on Iraq had failed.

Dan Rather going after Bush in Oct. 2004, which effort might have changed the election if he had been content to stay only with former Texas Lt. Governor Ben Barnes, live, saying that he himself had gotten GW Bush skipped into the Air National Guard as a favor to GHW Bush. Instead, he went off on a not reliably substantiated fishing expedition at the behest of one of his producers. (That one, about favoritism for Bush in the Alabama Air National Guard, was probably correct, too, but for the first, they had Barnes himself on the air. One could almost see Karl Rove setting up the second one, as a trap for Rather, so as to blow the first one off the air, which is what happened. And the idiotic Kerry Campaign could have taken Barnes and run with him anyway, but of course did not.) Murrow, et al. were/are broadcast journalistic heroes.

And what was Russert famous for? I have said for some years that "Meet the Press" under him should have been called "Gotcha." Russert (obviously very well staffed to dig up all the stuff he used) just reveled in throwing up to his famous guests something they had said or written years before that contradicted something they had just said or written. In the aftermath of his passing (certainly sad for anyone to die so young as he did, and he was at times, like on election nights, fun to watch), I happened to be watching a feature on him on MSNBC. And there was David Gregory, proudly showing three Russert clips, presumably highlighting his wonderful journalistic skills, the skills that set him apart from everyone else on television today (at least according to most TV journalists and opinion folks like Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann this side of the Fox "News" Channel). And there they were. Three great "gotcha" moments, one each with Obama and McCain (for balance) and one with Bob Dole, which was memorable because it got old stern-faced actually laughing.

Russert a hero? Set up against Murrow, or Cronkite, or Arnett, or even the hapless Rather? Hardly. But today there are no journalistic heroes. I am not talking about the few brave commentators like Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart. I am talking about journalists. Sorry, but the "on-the-one-hand-this-on-the-other-hand-that," "let's-play-evensies," good ‘ol "gotcha" Russert just doesn't rank.

Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY), a weekly Contributing Author for the Web zine The Political Junkies.net; a Special Contributing Editor for Cyrano's Journal Online; and an invited contributor to the Web log The Daily Scare.

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