In a soliloquy on The Huffington Post, the Hollywood producer and liberal activist Norman Lear finds himself in a quandary after the indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — but still manages to to draw a moral lesson:
My reaction to the news that Tom DeLay had been indicted was to feel a deep sense of — YES! The Hammer had been halted. Perhaps, like other potentially lethal tools, to be put away. Then, perhaps because there is so much Jesus-speak in the public square these days, I wondered how Jesus would react to what I was feeling and what he would advise.
With the same degree of certitude that I mock when it comes from the Fundamentalist Right, I intuitively felt I knew what he would advise. The Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount would not have me gloating over what was certain to be another person’s problem.
I wrote down what you have just read and showed it to Lyn, my wife, and the purest Christian I know, albeit a liberal like her husband. “What?” she exclaimed! “What you’re feeling isn’t personal; it’s the good feeling that comes from a sense of justice being served!” “But sweetheart, I confess to a sense of joy also.” “Then it’s joy for justice, for fairness. Jesus was all about justice and fairness. And didn’t he throw the money-changers out of the temple?” “She’s right,” I thought to myself. And then later I wondered: “But is that really the only reason I am delighting in it all?”
Beats the hell out of me. But this I do know: Of the three of us, Lyn, Tom DeLay and me, only Mr. DeLay knows anything for certain.