Beale:
Last night, I was awakened from a fitful sleep, shortly after two o'clock
in the morning by a shrill, civilant, faceless voice. I couldn't make it out at first in the dark bedroom.
And I said, "I'm sorry, you will have to talk a little louder."
And the Voice said to me: "I want you to tell the people the truth, not an easy thing to
do because the people don't want to know the truth."
And I said, "You're kidding.
What the the hell should I know about the truth?"
But the Voice said to me: "Don't worry about the truth. I will put the words in your mouth."
And I said, "What is this, the burning bush? For God's sake, I'm not Moses."
And the Voice said to me: "And I'm not God. What has that got to do with it?"
And the voice said to me:
"We're not talking about eternal Truth or absolute
Truth or ultimate Truth. We're talking about impermanent, transient, human
truth. I don't expect you people to be capable of Truth but goddammit at
least your capable of self-preservation!"
And I said, "Why me?"
And the voice said:
"Because you're on television, dummy! You have 40
million Americans listening to you and after the show you could have 50
million. For Pete's sake, I'm not asking you to walk the land in sackcloth
and ashes preaching the Armageddon. You're on TV, man."
So I thought about it for a moment,
and then I said, "Ok."
