I'm not sure when American journalists started doing this, but now when any American icon passes on, his or her achievements are triumphed, and any of their controversies are virtually dismissed, even though most people's lives contain some bad along with the positive. It's called living a full life.
Nobody wants to be disrespectful, but when the full picture doesn't come out when the spotlight is the brightest on someone of note, it can be hard to get people to believe that the person deified made mistakes.
The greatest example of this in recent times was the passing of Ronald Reagan back in 2004. The Gipper, you might recall, passed away on a Saturday, and up until his funeral the following Friday, seldom was heard a discouraging word, despite the fact that he was one of the most controversial presidents ever, and some thought might have been impeached after the IranContra scandal broke in November of 1986.
But now with the death of Steve Jobs, we heard blogger Jeff Jarvis say on CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday that it was okay not to bring up anything negative about Jobs or Apple corporation – not now anyway.
And we're seeing the same thing happen now with the passing of NFL icon Al Davis, who died on Saturday. If you're not familiar with the now former Oakland Raider owner, there are plenty of good
obituaries all over the Internet for your consumption.
As any fan knows, Davis was loved, mostly by Raider fans (which I've been since 1972), and very much loathed by lots of other people around the league, mainly for his roguish ways of doing things.
Again as a Raider fan, I celebrate that rogue behavior — up to a point. But it would be inexcusable to gloss over one truly bad thing he did while at the height of his career.
This article appears in Oct 6-12, 2011.