Clearly, with your gift of combining wit and outrage, you have tapped into an enormous vein of resentment. You have become the voice of many people who feel their values and their way of life are under attack. Your meteoric rise to prominence demonstrates that our country's leadership needs to respect and attend to those feelings.

But that does not mean pandering to them. Admittedly, telling people what they want to hear has its payoffs. You have become the hero of millions by telling them that they are the righteous people, that their adversaries are wholly misguided, and that none of their own prejudices need re-examination. That's a big payoff for you. But at what cost to the debate on which our democracy depends?

We live in complicated, fast-changing times that grant us few certainties. No one side of our public arguments possesses all the truth. Every faction has its distortions and illusions. I've heard you challenge blacks and liberals, and other groups who are not the ones listening to you, to rethink and change and grow. But I've not heard you challenge your own followers to acknowledge that some of the ideas that threaten them deserve their attention and that some of their own attitudes need revision. Do you really believe that all that we need from conservatives is militant complacency?

Democracy requires a degree of mutual respect which allows some meeting of the minds. Certainty about one's own rightness and scorn for one's opponents, though great fun, are precisely the wrong attitudes to encourage if one wants a healthy democracy.

When Rodney King, whom I've heard you dismiss as simply a criminal, asked "Can't we all get along?" he used his one crucial moment in the public spotlight to act as a healer. We need more of that. It is said that if a rabbi is not at all in conflict with his community, then he is not a rabbi. I wish you'd use your position with your vast community to act as that kind of leader.