{"id":113,"date":"2006-11-24T05:08:31","date_gmt":"2006-11-24T11:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php\/2006\/11\/24\/roast-crocodile-with-all-the-fixings\/"},"modified":"2006-12-28T13:32:08","modified_gmt":"2006-12-28T19:32:08","slug":"roast-crocodile-with-all-the-fixings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=113","title":{"rendered":"Roast Crocodile With All The Fixings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Strib Editorial board yesterday cried crocodile tears about the tone of this state and nation’s political debate, in the form of a paeon to the healing power of Thanksgiving<\/a>. The piece starts out well, as far as it goes:<\/p>\n

The platters circled and tensions rose until some word or gesture or foregone rejoinder — invisible even afterward! — made possible a turning point, and it all turned out all right.<\/p>\n

Remember what Tolstoy said about happy families being all alike? We might suggest that picture-book Thanksgivings are all the same, while each stress-tested celebration that ends well is a triumph of unique circumstances, proving anew the wide possibilities of peacemaking.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed – what a wonderful sentiment!<\/p>\n

And then it makes a turn that makes one wonder – Did the Strib farm this editorial out to one of their regular writers’ wives? Or does the Strib really believe this stuff?<\/p>\n

In today’s America the distinctive flavor of political life is bitterness. It is not the depth of our differences that distinguishes this era so much as the rancor of our arguments, a thoroughgoing disrespect for opposing ideas and the people who hold them, for the weight of facts and the worth of pluralism.<\/p>\n

But we who fashion this page want to believe that if families and friends can heal their long-nursed hostilities with the help of roast turkey and root vegetables, then there is hope for bridging the merely political disputes among the players in our newly redivided government — and among the partisans who put them there.<\/p>\n

We want to believe that the elections just past have created the possibility of a turning point, a chance to change not only the course of the nation but the tone of its conversations.<\/p>\n

We want to believe that people who can shelve seething resentment for the sake of getting through a holiday meal with their families can do the same in service of healing for our country. Don’t you?<\/p>\n

Year after difficult year, the lesson of Thanksgiving is that all of us bring our faults and imperfections, our personal burdens of blame, to the feast table. If we behave ourselves and give others the benefit of our doubts, we may just leave it with a helping of grace.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ah.\u00a0 So we can expect the Strib to take a step back and recognize that conservative Republicans believe what we do for a reason, and quit referrring to every <\/em>conservative as a “divisive” “extremist”?<\/p>\n

We can expect the Strib to report the whole story<\/a>, even if telling the whole truth exonerates Republicans?<\/p>\n

Sorry, Strib editors.\u00a0 I don’t believe a word of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Strib Editorial board yesterday cried crocodile tears about the tone of this state and nation’s political debate, in the form of a paeon to the healing power of Thanksgiving. The piece starts out well, as far as it goes: The platters circled and tensions rose until some word or gesture or foregone rejoinder — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,12,4,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campaign-06","category-campaign-08","category-media","category-minnesota-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}