WORDS VERSUS DEEDS

James Joyner | Tuesday, July 15, 2003

Richard Cohen laments recent revelations that President Harry Truman uttered anti-Semitic remarks, but believes Truman’s courageous recognition of Israel and his treatment of Jews personally counterbalances his private utterances. This causes him to muse about the modern press:

Truman instructs. The contemporary world is unforgiving of the blurted remark, the tossed-off opinion. We make little distinction between the private thought and the public action — between secretly acknowledging prejudice and refraining from acting on it. We are so enthralled with a simpleton’s version of Freud that we believe the word or the phrase is the window to the psyche or the soul — the Freudian slip that reveals all.

Interesting.

About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.

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