Stand for Something

by John Kasich

  Violence. Coarse behavior. An erosion of the family structure. Glorification of premarital sex and recreational drug abuse. It’s all fair game to music video directors, and television producers, and screenwriters, and video game designers—and even to clothing designers and fashion magazine editors who convince our impressionable young children that it’s okay to go to school with their belly buttons exposed, or their underwear showing from their low-hanging jeans, or their noses pierced and connected to their ears with a sterling chain. I maintain that we need to take some of this stuff off the table. It’s like my friend Bobby Kotick at Activision, making socially responsible video games and avoiding the shoot-’em-up, blood-and-guts filth that fills the toy aisles, even if it costs his publicly traded company an all-important segment of his business. We need to pull back, and realize that if we can’t make a positive contribution to our shared template of socially acceptable behavior with each and every creative choice then we should at least try—to do better, to balance each piece of hopelessness with an extra piece of hope, to look for ways to celebrate our ideals. Go ahead and write the story line about the unwed mother, or the teenage prostitute, or the deadbeat dad, or publish the video game that awards points for gunning down cops from the window of your tricked-out sports car, but look for ways to counter these negatives with a positive every now and then, because when you work in these powerful mediums you’ve got a tremendous platform, and along with it a tremendous responsibility to model appropriate behavior. Don’t take it lightly.

  It comes down to taking sides, just as it does in the world of sports—just as it does, really, in every aspect of American society. As responsible, moral adults, we must ask ourselves which team we want to be on, and where we want to align ourselves when it comes to these pop culture indicators. Do we side with the anything-goes-types who sink as low as our standards and practices allow, all the while looking to push those standards and practices ever lower? Or do we look to trod some higher ground, demanding entertainments that are at least rooted in decency?

  Students at the University of Maryland embrace a single swear word as their all-purpose chant at school basketball games, showering the F-word down on opposing players, shouting it out for the sheer joy of it, or donning T-shirts featuring “F— You!” as its slogan. It becomes such a pervasive aspect of home games that ESPN officials lodge a formal protest against the school, out of fear that it could not responsibly air a Maryland game beneath the swirl of such profanity, while school administrators refuse to eject offending students from the game, or to take disciplinary action against them . . .

  Absolutely, role modeling is important. It influences our national behavior, and sets an all-important tone, and the sophomoric swearing of college students is emblematic of the trend to “vile down” the culture in response to the increasingly vile impulses that permeate the pop culture scene.

  THE COSBY IMPERATIVE

  Here’s just one example of how we might stand against the negative images that prevail in our movies, and video games, and music videos: No less a role model than Bill Cosby, the veteran comedian who in recent years has become an advocate for contemporary African-American culture, set off a national debate by criticizing blacks in our poorest communities for not doing enough to right their own situation. In language that bounced from harsh to humorous to humane, Cosby was openly critical of blacks who fail to accept personal responsibility and choose instead to blame a predominantly white society for their disadvantages and misfortunes. In a speech before the NAACP, he said, “Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person’s problem. We have got to take the neighborhood back. We have to go in there, forget about telling your child to go into the Peace Corps, it is right around the corner. [Our children] are standing on the corner and they can’t speak English.”

  He continued, railing against “millionaire” basketball players who “can’t write a paragraph” and football players who “can’t read”: “Yes, Brown versus the Board of Education paved the way, but where are we today? What did we do with it? That white man, he’s laughing. He’s got to be laughing. Fifty percent of [our children] drop out. The rest of them are in prison.”

  Cosby’s comments took America by surprise, coming as they did from someone who was accustomed to making us laugh instead of making us think, and his position infuriated a great many leaders in the black community, but that’s why his message was so powerful. He dared to articulate an unpopular view in order to bring about change, and in the fallout set in motion a kind of crusade to bring that message to anyone who might have missed his NAACP speech. “It is not all right for your fifteen-year-old daughter to have a child,” he admonished an audience of about two thousand in a Milwaukee high school. And he shocked another thousand or so fans in an Atlanta audience by criticizing single mothers for having sex within their children’s hearing—“and then four days later you bring another man into the house.” In another appearance, he blasted “lower-economic people” for buying their kids $500 sneakers instead of “Hooked on Phonics.”

  Unfortunately (although, perhaps, predictably), Cosby has been ridiculed and attacked for his comments, and I imagine it will cost him over the long haul, in terms of his concert ticket sales or his Q rating, but I think it showed tremendous character to stand up and take on his entire community. He’s standing up, and being heard, and voicing a view that for too long people have been unwilling to put into words. All that great comedy he did over the years means nothing to me compared to what he’s saying here. And, man, is he taking heat. I look on and think, Good for him—that he has the courage to stand behind his words, and the wisdom to recognize that as an educated black man with a gigantic following that cuts across all racial, social, and economic boundaries, he’s probably one of the few people in America in a position to vent on an issue like this.

  And, so, he vents, and as we listen in we remind ourselves that we’ve all got to help with the heavy lifting, in what ways we can, and that it falls to each of us to take responsibility, to be a voice of reason, to lead so that others might follow. Why is it that no one else with Bill Cosby’s stature has taken such a firm stand—on this or any other compelling social issue? Why is it that when they do stick their necks out and voice appropriate concern, people like Bill Cosby have to pay for it by becoming the butt of one of Jay Leno’s jokes on the Tonight show? It’s no wonder, I guess, that these people are hiding, but if we mean to set America right they need to take the lead in this area, and share their principled views, and hope to get a hearing.

  Indeed, anyone can find himself in a position of power or influence, but it’s the individual who uses that position of power or influence for the greater good who can truly claim the mantle of leader.

  Schoolteacher Mary Kay Letourneau is imprisoned for having sex with her twelve-year-old student Vili Fualaau, but continues her pursuit of the young man and eventually marries him when she leaves prison nearly ten years later. The wedding is attended by the couple’s two children, and covered exclusively by Entertainment Tonight and The Insider, wherein producers refer to this unseemly relationship as a “unique love story” . . .

  Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter charged with fabricating stories and plagiarizing materials, is rewarded for his transparent lack of journalistic ethics with a six-figure book deal . . .

  A word or two on the media, which also acts as a gatekeeper in this regard, and in some respects feeds the systemic abuse of power and moral bankruptcy that permeates our culture. I don’t mean to group the above two items in such a way as to suggest that the New York Times is in the same category as Entertainment Tonight and The Insider and other infotainment-type celebrity news programs, but I believe our tabloid television producers share many of the same responsibilities as our leading journalists. Taken together, they set our national agenda, and hold a mirror to who we are and how we behave—and, depending on the angle of that mirror, we take what we want from the reflection. They ought to g
et the story right, and report it fairly, and responsibly. There’s no room in the mainstream media for an agenda of any kind, whether you’re Dan Rather and CBS News reporting that President Bush was given preferential treatment in his National Guard service, or Court TV offering up purported insight and analysis of Michael Jackson’s child molestation trial. Let us never forget the power of the printed word or the weight of a broadcast report, because Americans rely on all these sources of information and regard them as truth, but at the same time let us never forget that readers and ratings drive virtually every news-related decision in every newsroom in this country. These numbers are like gravity—in the news business, as in any other. They’re a fact of life. But there’s got to be some conscience underneath the numbers or we’ll lose our footing.

  To offer an example from personal experience, I know that on my own FOX News show we must sometimes devote time to stories that appeal to our base instincts. I’m not thrilled that I must spend half my show covering, say, the saga of Jennifer Wilbanks, the Georgia woman who skipped out on her wedding in Spring 2005, but I know the reality of my business, and I look to find a balance. Hopefully, you don’t just do what feeds the beast, but you offer stories and insights that give people a chance to learn something new. On our show, we’ve done stories on the United Nations, Sudan, Ukraine . . . before any other mainstream show would touch these topics, because I feel duty-bound to shine a light in as many corners of the world as possible. And do you know what? These stories are “rating,” as we say in our newsroom—which means folks in the heartland are tuning in.

  IT’S NEWS TO US

  The real question journalists of every stripe should be asking is, “Am I pimping this story or am I reporting this story?” There’s wide latitude in terms of what you say and write, just as there’s great freedom in deciding which stories you’ll cover in the first place. I think back to the great legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and wonder if he could have won reelection as president in today’s political climate, under the intense glare of our modern media. At the time, the nature of FDR’s health and the extent of his disability due to polio were never fully reported in the press, and he was propped up before the crowds and the cameras in such a way that the American public never had a true sense of his condition. They knew, but at the same time they didn’t know, because the media back then chose to emphasize FDR’s strengths as a leader over his physical weakness as a man. Today, I’m guessing, there’d be note and comment from his nurses and doctors and designers of the presidential wheelchair, with voters left knowing everything there was to know about their disabled leader, and the contrast begs the question: Was it responsible for American journalists to sweep so much about FDR’s condition under the rug—in a time of war, as he faced reelection? And, the inevitable follow-up question: Is it responsible for today’s journalists to dig out so much dirt from beneath all kinds of rugs that they keep good candidates from even seeking office?

  There are no easy answers to these questions, but I do know this: We ought to be thankful for our free press. It’s not a perfect system, and everywhere you look there are abuses of it, but it’s our salvation. It’s sort of like politics, and religion, and business. We look on and see things we don’t like, and yet we recognize what we have and make the most of it, and it’s in making the most of it that we stand apart. It’s what keeps us honest, and moving forward. The leaders in the media can raise the bar, and stand for something, in many of the same ways as the celebrated men and women to whom they devote their front-burner attention, thereby advancing our general condition. They can inform, enlighten, and expand our horizons. Or, they can drag us into the gutter and encourage us to rubberneck as our misguided celebrities make one misstep after another.

  It’s on them, and it’s on us, and it takes us back one final time to the daddy-cam or mommy-cam concept I advocated early on in these pages. We’ll get it right eventually, if we can simply manage to conduct ourselves as if our children are watching—at all times, in all things. Because they are. And, because they will keep on watching until we do get it right, at which point we will finally be able to look away and know we’ve given them the tools they need to get it right for themselves.

  9

  TAKING THE NEXT STEP

  “Peace is normally a great good, and normally it coincides with righteousness, but it is righteousness and not peace which should bind the conscience of a nation as it should bind the conscience of an individual; and neither a nation nor an individual can surrender conscience to another’s keeping.”

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Setting right the American pendulum is not about venting. If it were, we’d all be hoarse from talking our own blue streaks—and deaf from tuning out the rants of our friends and neighbors. Venting is a part of it, to be sure, and it might even play a central role from time to time, but we need more than mere talk in order to bring about change. We need action. And we need leadership. I’ve been calling for a healthy dose of each throughout these pages, and I’ll sound the call one final time here, because leadership is doing.

  To reiterate: It’s not just on our senators and congressmen to get it right on our behalf. It’s not just on our religious and business leaders. And it’s not just on our celebrities and pop culture icons. It might start there, in some respects, but it certainly doesn’t end there when it comes to clearing our national conscience, because remember, America is run from the bottom up and not the top down. It’s on all of us, really, and we ought to get about it.

  Understand, we can’t seek sweeping change all at once. We won’t get anywhere if we keep swinging for the fences and hoping to come up big every time out, because this is one area where it’s not about hitting home runs. It’s an incremental thing. You’ll have to excuse me one final time with these sports metaphors, but it’s about stroking a series of seeing-eye singles, and getting a rally going, and chasing the demon pitcher from the game with pluck and perseverance. It’s about taking the time to take care.

  SPEAK UP!

  It’s about taking a stand, each and every day, in whatever way possible. I’ll toss out a couple of examples from my own life, in hopes of getting us started—and I trust that readers who’ve stayed with me this long will realize that I do so not to pat myself on the back but to demonstrate how easy it is to lead by making a small stand. (Also, how easy it is to avoid doing so, which I guess is a big part of the problem.) The first incident came to public attention, while the second took place in the relative quiet of a New Hampshire backyard. As it happened, the first incident came during the exploratory phase of my run for president, and on reflection I’m not entirely sure that it paints me in the best light. In fact, it’s possible to look on my actions as the rantings of a wild man, but I’ll let you readers be the judge. The second incident took place during the campaign itself—and again, I’m afraid I come off as a little too pleased with myself for telling it here. Here, too, you readers will form your own opinion.

  The first story: I was in my local video store looking for a movie to watch with my wife, Karen, during one of our few quiet evenings together at home. The clerk in the store recommended Fargo, a perversely dark crime story that had played to generally enthusiastic reviews. The movie even earned a Best Actress Oscar for Frances McDormand for her role as a pregnant Midwestern sheriff, and the guy behind the counter at Blockbuster assured me it was a great movie and that I should probably rent it. So I did. Walked right over to that shelf where they had their general titles, grabbed a copy and took it home, and when Karen and I got to the part where they chop up a guy in a grinder we looked at each other and thought, What the heck are we watching here? It was billed as a comedy, but it wasn’t funny. It was graphic, and brutal, and completely unnecessary, and it rubbed us in so many wrong ways we had to shut the thing off right there in the middle. For my money, it was little different from a Texas Chainsaw Massacre-type snuff movie, and completely unexpected from the movie’s packaging and the critical acclaim
, and as I pulled the tape from the VCR I became more and more enraged that we had been subjected to it in the first place.

  Next morning, I got on the phone to Blockbuster and demanded that they take the movie off their shelves. I was incensed—and on a mission. I was a fairly prominent local customer, so they knew who I was, but I didn’t demand any special treatment because I was thinking about running for president at the time. I was personally offended, and it had nothing to do with any kind of political stand. As anonymously as possible, then, I worked my way up from the clerk to the manager, until someone in charge finally threw up his hands and agreed to start doing a better job labeling movies for graphic content—even well-reviewed, Academy Award-winning movies—and I contented myself with this small victory and returned my attention to the rest of my busy life. That is, until I heard from friends whom I had bothered with this tale of frustration that our local Blockbuster hadn’t really done all that much in the way of labeling after all, which of course set me off all over again.

  I couldn’t say firsthand whether the situation had gotten any better, because I had taken my business elsewhere, but from all accounts not much had changed, so I called the store again to remind them of our deal, and it got to where Karen had to tell me to back off because I was driving everyone crazy. I’d made my point, she said, and it was time to move on, so I did, but not before the columnist George Will picked up on the story and wrote about it in the Washington Post.

  “Pity the fellow who was working at the Blockbuster store when John Kasich spotted a cassette of Fargo,” the column began, before Will offered his take on whether such an emphatic congressman (a “high-octane, right-to-life Christian”) was fit to lead this nation.