People from a distance can't tell who is who

Kuros comments:

TNC,

Didn't you make us a promise last week that you weren't going to get all riled up by the noise on the network hooplah?

C'mon, man. This is beneath you, right? Well, I don't know. But more importantly, this Juan Williams stuff is boring. Neither does any of this help me understand anything.

Yup, I sure did. I don't have a logical defense here. I violated my own standard. So, since I 't don't have a decent rebuttal, I can only give you my thinking. Emotionally, it's a lot easier for me to tune out Hannity, Limbaugh etc. A part of it is that those guys are, let's just say it, nuts. Another part of it is that Williams--unlike Limbaugh and Hannity--is a man who has actually helped this country better understand itself, and helped black people better understand themselves. In other words, I have a respect for Juan Williams, as a thinker, that I simply don't have for most of the clucking heads on cable.

There's more. Williams has, of late, been obsessed with gangsta rap and the cultural failings of young black men. Chief among his complaints is how we talk about women. It simply boggles the mind that Williams would then invoke the most ancient of stereotypes about black women. Moreover, it boggles the mind that Williams would actually buy into this idea that Obama is actually some sort of closet radical. As a reporter and as writer--which neither Limbaugh, nor Hannity, nor O'Reilly, nor Scarborough are--I just expect a little more.

And then there's one final thing. Look--none of us are clean. But for the past few years we've been treated to older black men holding young black men to a standard, which they themselves have failed to uphold. I get skeptical when I see lazy thinking (be careful about the Cosby/Obama comparisons). I get even more skeptical when I hear people moralizing a little too hard. And I get downright suspicious, when I see people airing everyone else's dirty laundy--except their own. Like I said, nobody's clean. But your past mistakes should chasten--not embolden.

I go back and forth between wanting to challenge this stuff, and feeling like it's a waste of time. Blogging is so emotional. Unlike print, there is no screen between us. I try to keep the temperature down around these parts. But the more I blog, the more I find that while that's an important goal, it's impossible to make it an absolute.