“It only took America 244 years to go from
‘Honest Abe’ and ‘I cannot tell a lie’ to 16,241 false or misleading claims and a reality
show State of the Union address that wasn’t quite
real. . . .
“Maybe I took this hard because fact-checking
is so central to journalism, including (and I’d argue especially) in opinion
columns. And maybe it’s because the facts were dribbling out as Presidents
Day approached.
“Our first president, the father of our country,
was in most if not all ways the polar opposite of today’s leader of our
country. As a teenager, he copied into his school book scores of ‘rules of civility’ in circulation at the
time.
“Rule 1: ‘Every Action done in Company, ought to be
with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.’ Rule 110, the last one:
‘Labour to keep alive in your Breast that Little Spark of Ce[les]tial fire
Called Conscience.’”
—Jill
Lawrence, commentary editor, USAToday, “Washington’s ‘Rules of Civility’ could teach Trump lessons
on insults and fake news,” Feb. 17, 2020.
• Editorial Comment: “Conscience”? “Civility”? How quaint.
Cold Fish
February’s Senior News . . . Boffo!
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“I don’t think writers are sacred,
but words are. They deserve respect. If you get the right ones, in the right
order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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