THE QUALITY OF MERCY

When Rush Limbaugh's drug problem first surfaced in various Web site
chatter, I was intrigued. When it made the evening news, I admit I felt a
moment of joy. Limbaugh is the icon of brutish, cheap-shot conservatism and
his entertaining style has spawned a vast legion of broadcast talkers even
nastier than he. How could one not find some pleasure in his fall from
grace? As we learned from the unmasking of other righteously destructive
rightwingers, hypocrisy is their middle name.

My feeling passed and the story disappeared from the news (at least for
now). But I was led to reconsider my reactions to Limbaugh's troubles by a
surprisingly compassionate editorial in the Wall Street Journal. The WSJ is
a leading purveyor of brittle condescension and scorn, the first apostle of
hard-ass conservatism. But the Journal asked its readers to feel human
sympathy.

What an odd suggestion from that source. American culture has been severely
coarsened during the last generation, not so much by the rightwing talkers,
but by the brutish practices of modern capitalism and by institutions like
the Journal who lead cheers for the ideology of take no prisoners, throw the
losers over the side. Winners and losers are the natural order in life,
winners should merely push them aside and get on with it.

The anger and shame that now permeate this society were planted in large
part by the callousness of Wall Street finance and major corporations. They
routinely pursue self-interest by trampling others and call it "efficiency."
The victims are often their own employees or shareholders (not to mention
welfare mothers and people too weak and poor even to afford shelter). The
right embraces this new definition of manliness (even the so-called
Christian right). Liberals who hold back are ridiculed as bleeding-heart
sissies.

Business is business. The dominant culture tells young people their only
choice in life is between hard or soft. Despite what they are taught, a lot
of young people reject that choice, but many also succumb. Who wants to be a
loser?

Repairing our damaged culture is a difficult and longterm task, but maybe
social change can start in odd places like the Wall Street Journal's
editorial page. Their Limbaugh editorial cited the New Testament parable of
the adulterous woman - he who is without sin may cast the first stone - "to
remind us that we are all human, failed creatures." President Bush, it
added, responded compassionately to Rush's troubles, perhaps because he
himself fought a drinking problem not too long ago. Yes, indeed, we are all
human, failed creatures.

We are not all compassionate beings, however. The Wall Street Journal and
right-wingers in general are very selective in where they choose to bestow
human sympathy. Usually, it is reserved for other rightwingers or for
business guys who find themselves in trouble with the law. When the WSJ
recently reviewed my new book, it peppered it and me with the usual
disparaging wisecracks. That's expected. I don't go to their church and,
indeed, I regularly attack their religion.

But what really angered me were the scornful wisecracks the review directed
at the organization called Solidarity described in my book. It is a temp
agency in Baltimore owned and run by the temp workers themselves in
cooperative fashion. They earn a dollar or two more per hour than other temp
workers, they have health-care coverage, they share the profits. And nearly
all of them are recovering narcotics addicts and/or former prison inmates. I
explained how their mutual struggles with addiction give them a shared sense
of self-discipline (no one can con a fellow member of Narcotics Anonymous
who's been through the same fire). The reviewer quipped: "Apparently, being
stoned together breeds camarderie." Yuk, yuk.

The Solidarity workers are of course black. The WSJ would not make drug
jokes about white guys in suits - corporate executives struggling to
overcome alcoholism or the bond traders afflicted by cocaine habits (indeed,
it seldom writes about these addicts). The Journal needs to work on its own
human sympathy. "The quality of mercy is not strain'd," Shakespeare taught
us. "It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven..."

Maybe, when the full story becomes known, Rush Limbaugh will find the
courage to express a more encompassing sympathy for other human beings. No
one should expect Rush to change his politics or eschew cheap-shot jokes (he
would be boring without them). But, the next time someone has stumbled and
fallen, either wrestling with personal demons or crushed by error and ill
fortune, the first question Limbaugh (and the rest of us) might ask is:
Doesn't anybody feel sorry for the poor bastard?