Facts, not Opinions

Stockholm syndrome: a psychological response sometimes seen in an abducted hostage, in which the hostage exhibits loyalty to the hostage-taker, in spite of the risk in which the hostage has been placed. (Wikipedia)

It’s important that we redevelop a passion for facts. If one lives in the world of public discourse, one knows we waste too much time on opinion—the stuff that fills the vast empty time or space between the rare, new facts on the ground.

I admire Mara Liasson and David Brooks because they offer balance on programs that are canted against their views. Balance helps us find the facts lost in the pile of wasted opinion. Weekly on PBS's "Lehrer Report," Brooks goes up against the partisan Democrat Mark Shields, and when Jim Lehrer isn’t around, a partisan PBS “moderator” as well. Brooks, a conservative who helped launch the conservative Weekly Standard, now works for the liberal New York Times, however. As time passes, he seems increasingly willing to criticize conservatives. Perhaps this evolution, some mild form of the “Stockholm syndrome,” is just inevitable for Times employees. Still, Brooks retains good inner-circle Republican sources, which help him bring fresh facts to the table.

Liasson, NPR’s National Correspondent and successor to the better-known Cokie Roberts, is a liberal. Yet for some reason, she has been willing to appear regularly as a commentator on Fox News’ “Special Report with Brit Hume.” Inevitably, she is up against the conservative Hume and two other panelists who are also openly conservative. Like Brooks, her style is agreeable and polite, and her presence, like that of Brooks, serves to provide some balance, giving facts the chance to surface amidst a welter of near-worthless opinion. Unlike Brooks, however, Liasson doesn’t criticize those on her side, or point to their failures. What qualifies her for “Stockholm syndrome” analysis is her polite reluctance to get “down and dirty” with her noisy, conservative counterparts.

There is growing concern that America is too polarized for our own good. Bush is considered unnecessarily divisive, and many attribute the unpopularity of Congress to its partisan food fights. A correction toward compromise, toward meeting in the middle, seems in order. When people learn from each other, when they recognize that nobody has a corner on the truth, facts have a chance to emerge.