Bill Moyers at the NCMR 2008

Full video

Frequent visitors of the google video homepage are sure to have noticed that there are two videos currently making the rounds with our man Moyers in the title. One is the video linked above, a stirring speech about media rights and responsibilities, net neutrality, and the resistance of tyranny; the other is a no less stirring, but starkly more visceral look at a triumph of wit of the highest order. Both have much to do with this conference. The latter video, which is not linked here, shows Bill Moyers stepping out after proving, in the first link, that the spirits of Cicero and Guthrie are not so disunited after all. One of the hounds of O'Reilly tries to ambush him. Within seconds, Moyers has the tables turned, making the little varlet blush with questions of how Citizen Murdoch could have possibly claimed the Iraq War would cheapen oil (having risen 500%, or about 100$ a barrel from the time of the claim to now), or why ol' Bill hadn't come on his show. The blustering stooge tries to assassinate Moyers' character, but ends up staggering off (literally, he has a faraway look in his eye and wanders about in a circle before being run off) to avoid the lens of the true press.

Now all this becomes quite understandable once the linked video has been watched. Perhaps the Fox Noise (thanks Olbermann) staff hadn't realized what the acronym NCMR meant (National Conference for Media Reform), or that Moyers would have just come off from having given one of the most inspiring speeches about responsible journalism ever, but they sent, essentially, a child with a foam bat to a gunfight. As he is walking away, the Fox employee is pestered with questions about how he thought this little ambush would go, and did he like ambushes like these, and did he realize he was now the one ambushed?

If the stakes were lower, one might almost feel sorry for the lackey, who must now go home and meet the gaze of his wife and children, and feel, in his heart of hearts, ashamed. To perhaps have realized, for the first time in his life, the baseness and crudity of his occupation and his business partners. More needs not be said.

As for the speech itself, which was meant to be the first order of business for this blogging day, it speaks for itself. Moyers has an uncommon way with words and an even more rare message of moral intensity and uprightness. His message, and I paraphrase, is that we are not alone. Not one of us, on the airwaves or the internet, in church or coffeehouse, on the streets or with our families. He is the equivalent in the arena of free discourse of what we hope Barack Obama will be in applied politics, and their message is alike in both clarity and in resonance, and in form both subjunctive and imperative: we can, we should, we must.