What Unites Us

"We're talking about the country, folks. What kind of country are we becoming?" Dan Rather, November 9, 2017.

Dan Rather turned 86 on Halloween and just published a new book called What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism (written with Elliot Kirschner). He spoke with columnist Jonathan Capehart last night at George Washington University's Lisner Auditorium, seeking to bring perspective to a world where fake news vies with the real thing.

Rather's 44-year real news career at CBS News came to an end not long after papers he used to report a story on former President George W. Bush's National Guard record were questioned as fraudulent. But that was more than a decade ago, and Rather has moved on. His News and Guts Facebook site has almost one and a half million followers. He's embraced by millennials.

"I'm just a lucky reporter," Rather said, not a philosopher. But he spoke about ideas and ideals, about the difference between patriotism, rooted in humility, and nationalism, rooted in arrogance. "Our nation suffers from a dearth of empathy," he said, and in answer to one young woman who asked what she could do every day to counter the nation's negative tone, said "help others."

Some of Rather's most pointed comments came when he talked about the state of journalism today. "A free press is the red beating heart of democracy," he said. And, "the news is what the public needs to know that some powerful person doesn't want them to know."

What moved me most was hearing Capehart and Rather read from What Unites Us, in particular a passage about the importance of books:

"Our nation was born in a spirit of fierce debate. Our Founding Fathers had sharp political differences, but they were almost all deep readers, writers, and thinkers. When they set about to create a modern republic, they went into their libraries and pulled out the works of philosophers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes. They consulted the Greeks, the Romans, the philosophers of Europe, and the Bible. They revered the power of the written word and how it enabled a nation free from the whims of a king. As John Adams wrote, a republic "is a government of laws, and not of men." A government of laws is a government of reason, and a government of books. That was true at our founding, and we must ensure that it remains a hallmark of our future."