Working for a metropolitan daily newspaper (not the Planet) in the early 1970's was heady stuff. It didn't take the experienced long to see that it was an illusion. What we were writing was filler. All that mattered was the perception that it was accurate.
The newspeople and the politicians have been in bed together since Guttenberg at least. Dangerous liaisons, but somehow Samuel Clemens and Will Rogers were able to rise above the drivel and keep us straight, if not laughing.
Janice Williams, rest her soul, once said to me, 'Bud, all these reporters around here are just second-class celebrities. By the time they figure it out, it will be too late for a career change.'
She became a successful real-estate agent. The good ones got into a related field or became publishers. Z. Joe delivered flowers because people were always glad to see him.
This truth holds, however. What does a journalist know about anything? Walter Cronkite got out in the bush so he knew what was real. But what about these people that write for the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Economist? What do they think qualifies them to pass judgement for the rest of us?
If a reporter for the Journal or Economist were really that good, why would they be writing about it? They'd be rolling in dough from the market or from their consulting work, right? What about the academics who have never done anything? Sure, they read a lot and write a lot and command a wealth of fact perhaps, but have they ever achieved anything? Can they even draw a picture, much less make something happen in the world?
It's the blurry line between fact and a good story that is at issue. It's one thing to write a great story, it is something else to hold it out as unassailable truth. Some poor sod might just believe it! The real question may be, 'Are they sods because they're poor or are they poor because they're sods?' The measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members.
Look how much Bader-Ginsburg has amassed. How long will it take Kagan or Sotomayor to figure it out? Clarence Thomas, he lay low. What have these people done for society?
So how DID Obama get to the White House? Some people blame Horace Greeley. Some people think Greeley was a great guy. Some people think Greeley was a lying bastard because he advocated giving people money from the treasury to cure their alcoholism. Some people think Obama is a great guy.
The point is Barry made it without the rigorous vetting that Robert Bork got for the Supreme Court. At least, Robert had the courage to say what he thought rather than hide behind meaningless mendacity.
Never have Americans seen the kind of regulation spewing from Washington since King George and the Declaration of Independence. Those idiots treat the Constitution like it was created in a vacuum.
Apple computer is suddenly monopolistic, restraining trade? The White House is restraining trade. Justice is looking at CRIMINAL charges against BP? The states are lining up with their hands out, enabled by a soft touch in the Oval Office. The Palestinians are gonna get more money without any promise of ratcheting down the violence? Didn't Arafat at least get Hamas to quiet down before giving them any money? Didn't all his officials drive Mercedes and build new houses? Hasn't the White House Press Secretary promised that BP will be crushed? Of course, the President has been most vigilant over press leaks. Is that not how 'they' manipulate the public agenda? Who leaked that story?
Hamid Karzai seems to know more about American foreign policy than anybody in the White House. Bring the boys home, dammit!
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