The Anointing of Saint Shep Smith

How Should We Judge the Moral Responsibility of our Public Figures?

Every time I check into the American public sphere — what stories are making the rounds, what pundits think of what other pundits think of pundits who don’t how to think about stuff — I chuckle. Sometimes in despair, sometimes in horror, often in both.Does that make me sound arrogant? Or do you agree — like most sane people I know across the world — that the American public sphere verges somewhere between a disgrace, a tragedy, and a farce? That’s for you to judge.

Here’s a recent case in point.

I was astonished to check Twitter the other day, and see, hailed as a hero, a man of great courage and integrity and wisdom, a role model in these troubled times, a defiant rebel…none other than Shep Smith. You know, the guy who helped build Faux News into the head-spinningly evil behemoth it is. It wouldn’t be too much to say that the macho men of the American public sphere…even its self-proclaimed liberals and good guys…were all clutching each other and falling over each other and crying over the martyrdom of good ole Saint Shep Smith.

Now, this essay’s going to be a little mean. A touch unkind. You see, I like Shep. I’d probably enjoy having a few beers with him quite a bit. There’s a kind of torture, a…