Hearsay

More than three centuries have passed since the word “pundit” was adapted from the Hindi honorific “pandit,” or wise and learned person. The definition of pundit, which came into usage in 1672, includes designation of “one who gives opinions in an authoritative manner.”

Therein lies the rub that has kneaded the art of punditry into loaves of lampoonery. Authoritative? One definition of “authority” is a conclusive statement or precedent. Another is the power to influence opinion.

As the talking heads of electronic media and effusive blatherers of op-ed wisdom in print assume new dimensions of authority, a counterculture of righteousness tries to rein in the excesses. But ever so cautiously.

The First Amendment, you see, applies equally to those who espouse responsibility - the dues one pays for the right to express opinions - as it does to those who major in “truthiness,” which a recent survey dubbed Word of the Year for 2006.

Satirist Stephen Colbert, who coined truthiness, has defined it as “truth that comes from the gut, not books.” In other words, never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

This mindset offends the journalistic ethic. It is a sign that anything goes if one has a receptive, responsive audience. The seething sword of truthiness is license to impale the unwary, to stretch the cognizance of the witlessly unaware.

From the perspective of the vexed, punditry too often dons a cloak of loathsomeness. Journalists true to a code have referred to pundits as those who swoop down from the hills after a battle and shoot the wounded.

Some recent examples come to mind.

The battle for 31 associate judgeships in Cook County is over (see page 9). The list of 243 applicants evaluated by 10 members of the Alliance of Bar Associations was winnowed to 62 finalists by the circuit court's nominating committee.

Down came the sniping pundits. “Trial & errors” – the Sun-Times front-page headline in circus poster type preceded an editorial statement that 18 of the 62 finalists were “found unqualified by one or more bar groups…”

And on page 3: “OUT OF ORDER” (again in type you could read from across Daley Plaza) “CLOUT MAKES CUT TO BE JUDGE” over coverage that savaged five survivors for such indiscretions as being a member of the chief judge's church or the girlfriend of a sitting judge.

A likeness of recalled Judge Sheldon Harris was posterized on page 1 like a police mug shot. He is “a friend of” Justice Charles Freeman but was found “arrogant and rude” by the Chicago Council of Lawyers (CCL). The article fails to mention that Harris was recommended by eight of the Alliance bar members.

In fact, 16 of the 18 “found unqualified by one or more bar groups” were nixed by the CCL, and nine of those ONLY by the council. By contrast, only one candidate on the list of 62 finalists was determined by the ISBA to be less than qualified.

In all, 44 finalists (71 percent) were rated qualified or highly qualified by EVERY Alliance bar member that evaluated them, even the CCL (and 29 were appointed). A better story, perhaps, but not to the pundits.

Chief Illiniwek may be history – a rich history at that, despite differences of opinion that led to his recent demise as a living symbol of an otherwise forgotten part of this state's heritage.

But moribund he is, condemned by order of the quasi-judicial NCAA - the best efforts of University of Illinois alumni partisans to the contrary. The remains were still warm when the pundits swooped in, bloodthirsty for the scalp of what one called “a minstrel in symbolic red face.”

A delusional sport scribe chimed in with suggestions for successor symbols that “just might capture the imagination of the Illinois fan base.” Among them: The Fighting Dumb Blonds, The Fighting Lepers, and, heaven help us, The Fighting White Supremacists.

On the entertainment page, a more appropriate venue, suggestions included The Fighting Soybean, the Obama, Honest Abe, and Grabby, the state legislator.

Only the Tribune's sportsmanlike Eric Zorn wrote dispassionately, at the risk of losing his punditry license, that “It's time to look for common ground on which to go forward.”

The loss of a symbol “won't detract from the reputation or image of a great academic institution” that may turn out “even better for not being rent by this controversy,” Zorn observed with rare prescience.

Ave atque vale, Chief. It could be worse. Alumni of the College of William and Mary have been up in arms since a cross was removed from the chapel in the 307-year-old Sir Christoper Wren Building, so the sanctum can be “less faith-specific.”