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• Tuesday, April 24, 2007 10:58 AM

  Joan Walsh -

  I don't necessarily expect great journalism, or any kind of great representation or interpretation, from a remarkable event. Sometimes it happens, sometimes not. I have to say, though, that the media certainly did its job in supplying accumulating details to a fascinating human story. And that, after all, is also a mark of great journalism. No, one person didn't paint the definitive portrait, but the accumulated effort, a stroke here, a stroke there, amounted to a magnificent tale - lurid, gripping, meaningful.

  There were 200 counselors on the Tech campus yesterday, Monday. On Friday there'd been 300 journalists. That is - and maybe this is your complaint - it's easier to tell a story than to do something about it.

  It should be said, too, that sometimes the journalists were rude and intrusive.

  -

  Though Cho's video repulsed many, it really opened my eyes to his vicious intractability - the rage coupled with the inability to widen out his bitter little view, a denial which gained exponential intensity through its laser focus. Usually these sickos get ashamed of what they're doing, enough to kill themselves, after a couple pulls of the trigger. But it took Cho 32 murders for it to get through to him.

  My book, "Rabid Fanatic: The Underpinnings of Livid Attachment," though you may not agree with it all, makes this event comprehensible.

  Both sides of the gun debate are beside the point. We need to learn a great deal more about mental illness - others' and our own.

  Best,

  Monty

  (more, for free: google "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston"

  —Monty Johnston Read Monty Johnston's other letters
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