I just started a most interesting book yesterday - "Bob Schieffer's America", a collection of the short pieces he has written for a number of years now to close CBS-TV's 'Face The Nation'. This is a not a program I watch with any regularity, but I have heard some of the pieces re-broadcast on the radio. I wanted to share a small section of his preface, because it struck me so powerfully:
The partisans of the hard right and left who seem to have no purpose but to prove the rightness of their cause will discover little of interest here. I find the professional screamers and their checklists of what constitutes a "liberal" or "conservative" predictable to the point of boredom. As I listen to their arguments on the cable channels and their unwillingness to give an inch on any issue, I still long for the day when someone on one side responds to someone on the other side by saying, "What an interesting point. You may be right." I'm still waiting, but I am not holding my breath.
I have always believed the greater and more intellectually challenging search is finding the things that bring us together rather than the differences that drive us apart.
In these essays, I have tried to follow the rule laid down by my great teacher Eric Sevareid to "elucidate, when one can, rather than advocate."
