Back to Black and White TV

 

President Obama told an Iowa campaign audience that watching the Republican National Convention was so last century, like watching black and white TV.  It occurs to me that this may be the nicest thing he could have said about the party in Tampa. I was born precisely in the middle of the last century, and I happen to think there was much to be recommended in those black and white days. If I could respond personally to President Obama, I might like to say that I long for something like the world of black and white TV.

Like black and white TV where Rob and Laura Petrie slipped into separate beds after an innocent good-night kiss leaving us to wonder where little Richie came from, instead of the panting, sweaty revelations that tele-voyeurism provides today.

Like black and white TV where the Lone Ranger and Ward Cleaver proclaimed the rightness of doing the right thing no matter the cost instead of the blackguards and wizards of today who question the very existence of the right thing.

Like black and white TV where true journalists like Walter Cronkite assured us “That’s the way it is” without propagandizing or pandering like today’s news anchors who fabricate “facts” to smear their chosen candidate’s opponent.

Like black and white TV where President Kennedy (a different sort of Democrat from you, Sir) proclaimed that citizens should “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” rather than a White House which advertises entitlements and denigrates honest labor when it leads to great success.

Like black and white TV where many of us (who could not yet afford color) watched Neil Armstrong complete with one small step the giant leap dramatically dictated by JFK only a few years earlier, unlike your policy, Mr. President, which Armstrong declared, "devastating," and condemned the United States to "a long downhill slide to mediocrity."

Like black and white TV where we all recoiled at George Wallace (another  Democrat) as he shouted some of the last of the obscenities hurled before the Civil Rights Act began to repair  the mistake perpetrated by the Founders.

Like black and white TV where there were admittedly scary scenes of nuclear holocaust perpetrated by the Red Menace, but where we remained steadfast in the conviction that might does not make right, but right often needs might to survive.

Like black and white TV where a very young Ronald Reagan stood before a Republican audience supporting Barry Goldwater’s 1964 run for President and said, "it's not that liberals are ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

This last is really the crux of the issue for me.  John Noonan pointed out in a 2007 Townhall.com article that liberals (that’s you, Mr. President) seem to assume a religious zeal in attacking their opponents, truth be damned. Well, Mr. President, there you go again (said Reagan.) It so happens that many of us in this country don’t think of the black and white days as all that bad. In fact, much of what they had to offer is far to be preferred to what you have brought with your “Hope and Change.” If “Forward” is your slogan, that backward may be exactly what this country needs. Back to fiscal responsibility; back to moral decency; back to personal industry; back to mere Christianity. Back to black and white TV.