The Man Who Won't Be Missed

Death is strange. It's strange because it makes the living forget things. The most despotic, intolerant individuals (people whose awfulness exceeds even Donald Rumsfeld's, for example), can expect sappy Hallmark eulogies once they finally do the world a favor and expire.

That said, I'm curious to see what people will make of Jerry Falwell's death. I can't say I'm upset, although I am surprised. The most obnoxious people seem to linger forever on the cusp of death, tantalizing and teasing their opponents with the promise of their coming end. So I fully expected Falwell to live on, like Castro, to confront the Apocalypse. Now that he hasn't, we get the next worst thing: misplaced nostalgia. I say, there's no harm in calling Falwell what he was: a bigot, a misogynist, and a fool. However, newspapers might disagree. Here are a few thoughts on the media spin we might see in the next few days.

"He loved children." (Translation: he condemned abortion, and encouraged violence against operators of legal abortion clinics.)

"He accepted that all people must choose how to live their lives." (Code for: He said homosexuality had no basis in biology.)

"He forgave and forgot." (Years after condmening Martin Luther King Jr., Falwell pretended to have supported the civil rights leader.)

"He was fluent in many religious traditions." (Falwell, who read portions of the Qu'ran, referred to Mohammad as a terrorist and a 'man of war.')

Yes, there's really no end to how creative we can be with this. Here's my problem with eulogizing goons like Falwell: future generations can't learn anything from such a sugarcoated history. If nothing else, Falwell's ideas polarized Republican politics and gave voice to an extreme evangelical minority. For this alone, we should reprint his ideas and statements exactly as they were.

The Washington Post seems to be doing that, but with mixed results. For example, they refer to Falwell as a man who preached "traditional values." I have read (a lot of) the Bible, and nowhere is intolerance listed as a value. Falwell practiced his own preachings, but they were grounded in personal interpretation. And although his interpretation has taken hold in the Heartland, I like to think there are Christians out there - active, even evangelical ones - who see traditional values as respecting your mother and father and doing good work in the community. Many of these people have no truck with Falwell and his self-aggrandizing agenda (or am I just deluded? One of those hopeless romantics who insists, even after seeing Borat, that Americans are good at heart?)

I also have another motive for wanting Falwell depicted scrupulously. I hope at some point John McCain sees the real Falwell and demonstrates some shame for his 2006 reconciliation with the man. The presidential campaign has turned McCain into a tragic hero. We have a man who, before his candidacy, spoke out bravely in favor of his reasoned, principled views. Now, he can no longer sort his elbow from his ass. He's trying to please, and he's doing it with the awkwardness of a debutante on her wedding night. It's ironic, really. The two front-runners for the Republican nomination are now tying themselves in knots trying to prove that they're not Democrats. We face a slew of the same candidates pretending to be different candidates. (With the exception of Barack Obama, who actually is different, although whether in a good way or a bad way I still can't decide.)