Earthtalk

James Carroll (Opinion, November 21) asks  "at what point does naivete become something to be ashamed of?" He then  inadvertently illustrates the answer to his question by  glorifying and exaggerating the role of the press in ending the Vietnam War.  Later he claims the press "tells you who your are" and "does for democracy what liturgy does for religion what poetry does for experience; what gesture does for feeling."

Carroll adds to this bloat by writing  that we, the reading public, naively believed that after Vietnam, our country would never again conduct a criminal and unnecessary war.   No one I know believed this and if Carroll actually believes  his own rhetorical excesses then it is now much clearer why the press stood by and rooted as we were dragged into the war in Iraq and why the press has been so slow in criticizing the Bush administration.   Carroll blames the public for going along with the press's acceptance of Bush's flimsy rationale for war because we needed  this "tissue of lies"  to "cover our shame."   This self-serving passing of the blame for one's own ineptness is the point at which naivete becomes something to be ashamed of.


published 11/25/05 Boston Globe