Posted by
VeeJay on Saturday, November 11, 2006 5:13:01 AM
BRADLEY’S END
By Father O’Bother
Ed Bradley died of Leukemia Thursday at the age of 65. He was a long-time member of the ‘60 Minutes’ cast and the report regarding his death struck me as distinctly sad. Not because I knew him, I did not, nor because of anything in particular that he’s ever done; he was after all no earth shaker but just a journalist. Nonetheless, he did always come across as a likeable guy with an engaging style of narrative that drew you in even when you were not originally inclined to listen. Thursday night, as my wife and I watched Katie Couric honoring him on CBS, I was bothered by the vapor of his life and the apparent lack of genuine concern he had for whatever lay beyond it.
From what I could see Ed Bradley, like many of his compatriots in the media, was a classic Progressive Utopian, a man who believed, as I myself once did, that life is all about humanity; that the world is a mess but that humanity can get itself out of it and progress to a better age by willing it just hard enough to make it happen. With a little pluck here and a whole lot of compassion there, man could make a world of peace by simply believing in his own ability to do it. It’s the very center of the liberal world view and I recognize it as being much like that which I once held as my own. I suspect that’s why most media representatives have so little patience for the Christian view of life. Its not just archaic in their eyes but suppressive; inhibiting as it does the advancement of the progressive utopian dream with its ‘medieval’ theology about fallen man, the devil and the need for a Savior.
Not that Ed never talked about the afterlife. Last night, they showed a part of an interview he did late in his life and he actually answered a question about the end of his life by giving a tongue in cheek nod to Christian doctrine, albeit by way of bad Hallmark theology . I will have to quote it roughly for I don’t remember the exact words but the gist of his answer was as follows: "When its all over and I come to the pearly gates and Saint Peter greets me there and asks me what I did to deserve entrance... I’m going to look him in the eye, smile and ask ‘did you ever see the interview I did with Lena Horne?’"
Lena Horne. Now I’ll grant you I will probably never meet or speak to anyone as talented or as famous as Lena Horne, but I doubt God would be impressed with that anyway. He’s not only met every famous person, He created all who have ever lived. How sad that Bradley thought just enough of the message to make a joke of it. Sadder still if he actually passed from this world thinking that his accomplishments as a journalist were going to help him to pass into the New Jerusalem without first being drenched in the blood of Another. How terribly, terribly sad for Ed Bradley and all who thought his comments were simply cute banter with no consequences beyond the end of the interview; or the end of his life.