As predictable as the Sun rising in the East, death, and taxes: CBS’s John Dickerson delivering an insufferable editorial to close out the day’s broadcast of CBS Evening News Plus.
JOHN DICKERSON: Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them. For the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these. That Bible verse from Matthew is about welcome and protection. But in America, the welcome at school now begins with a different kind of preparation. A section in the parents’ handbook about what to do, who to call. Drills for children who are still learning the multiplication tables. At that age they are just learning how to sound out words, how to share crayons, how to line up without jostling, how to raise a hand before speaking. They also learn how to hide from a gunman. Today, for Annunciation Catholic School, that training became necessary. They were at Mass- one of the ways we mark new beginnings in the fall along with a fresh backpack, new clothes and the sight of faces you missed all summer. Now these students have been initiated into another ritual: the American communion of violence. At eight, the age of one of the victims, you’re memorizing multiplication tables. At ten, the age of the other, you’re learning fractions, grammar, punctuation. At both ages you are supposed to be mastering cooperation, not survival. You’re supposed to play hide and seek for fun. This is now a second generation growing up knowing they might die at school. And with each shooting, they see that the adults in charge tolerate a political system, whether in laws, or in mental health care, or in personal responsibility, unwilling to address the violence. From sacrament to sacrilege, from communion to rupture, from students offering thoughts and prayers, to being the subject of them. The children pay the price for the national failure to address this reality. The Scripture books in the pews where those little children in their new green uniforms hid their rubbery limbs have words for the way adults have failed them. They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. Peace, peace, they say, when there is no peace. And that’s tonight’s CBS Evening News Plus. Thank you for joining us. I’m John Dickerson. Good night.
