I'm noticing that it's getting to the point where, when I'm listening to someone, I'm noticing certain kinds of statements which peg them as a liberal -- and I don't mean simple, overtly political giveaways such as "I hate Bush".

For example, here's Gregg Easterbrook, criticising those who participate in the National Prayer Breakfast:

What shakes my faith about the National Prayer Breakfast is not so much the posing, preening, superficial solemnity, and false good will the event stands for... The Washington Hilton ballroom is today's equivalent of the 'street corners' on which hypocrites used to pray 'so that they may be seen by others.'

Easterbrook's biblical exegesis aside (which I'll get to in a future posting), the core argument here is that the participants are hypocrites who act out of bad motives. Their alleged good will is "false", their purpose in attending it to receive good press or impress their peers. In other words, those in attendance do so primarily for bad motives. And Gregg knows what's in their hearts.

I remember the Reagan era as being filled with cricitism about how the President didn't care about the homeless, and hated women, minorities, the handicapped, etcetera, etcetera. Such criticism wasn't phrased as being about his policies (though that may really have been the point), but rather about his character and inner motives.

This view of Reagan lives on in the minds of notable liberals, such as those behind the recent CBS debacle, The Reagans, which portrayed Reagan as a foul-mouthed condemning Christian (he was neither, and didn't use harsh language, even in private) who hated homosexuals (one of his children is gay, and he (obviously) had gay friends when he was president of the screen actor's guild) and lacked any kind of redeeming qualities.

This isn't the Reagan of history, but it serves a good reminder of how a certain set of liberals saw him then, and still view him today: However nice he might have appeared in public, the inner man must have been hateful, hurtful, fearful, and evil. In light of this "understanding", all apparently-positive actions (his candor, good humor, kind treatment of critics, etc.) must therefore be a hypocritical facade to cover a loathesome soul.

(For some odd reason, this reminds me of the present.)

So I'm not suprised when positive anecdotes about Ron Reagan's character surface, like this one, in which he shakes off the press to avoid some good P.R. and spends some quality time with a group of blind children.

There's a M*A*S*H episode in which it's Christmas and the crew is getting together to help the orphans. Charles Winchester won't help publicly (and is thus continually excoriated, judged and humiliated) but instead, following an "old family tradition" [insert standard observation about TV writers' need to exclude religion as a source of positive behavior] has secretly given them a great gift. The lesson is to remember that you could be wrong when you judge someone by superficial appearances.

As a friend of mine (who sent me the article) is fond of quoting: "Character is what you do when no-one is watching."