Letters to the Editor
HenryFTP
Published Letters: 24
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"Constraints" on the Managing Editor of Time Magazine
[Read the article: Follow-up to this morning's post re: Chris Matthews Show]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Why don't pundits on MSNBC -- including the Managing Editor of Time Magazine -- recognize those same basic constraints?"
Glenn, the question answers itself. Rick Stengel is a rough contemporary of mine, and having ascended to the chair once held by Britton Hadden and Henry Anatole Grunwald, you'd better believe that he no longer deigns to acknowledge that he is subject to "constraints", particularly not those asserted by someone like you, with:
Ces grands airs arrogants!
Un hobereau qui ... qui ... n'a même pas des gants!
Et qui sort sans rubans, sans bouffettes, san ganses!
(H/T to Edmond Rostand -- the viscount's description of Cyrano de Bergerac before the famous swordfight at the Hôtel de Bourgogne).
Constraints, like "hobereaux" (country gentlemen who actually till their own soil instead of living off the tenants), are simply beneath Mr Stengel's notice. He firmly believes that he shapes American opinion, so he has absolutely no need to consult a poll.
The Bastille may have been stormed, but Versailles is still very much intact, serenely out of touch with what is happening in the country. The languid and fawning lapdogs expect the Democrats to do the King's bidding, just as the Estates-General was supposed to do the same in 1789. And so they might have, had not Paris and the country pulled them ever further out of royal manipulation and control.
Glenn, you see a people hungry for justice, whereas Rick Stengel sees his hard-won ascension to the seat of power being disturbed by unruly people outside the palace gates. And as long as Bush and his coterie can keep Rick Stengel in his comfort zone, his views still have more weight than a few opinion polls. The peasants still haven't ejected Henry Luce from his château.
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The Golden Rule
[Read the article: Drudge and the Politico -- poisonously joined at the hip]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]In the cruel real world, "he who has the gold makes the rules."
The boys at Politico.com are just following the money. As Matt Drudge apparently already rules the world they came from, linking up with him makes perfect sense. They give Drudge additional "street cred" because of their established reputations in the Beltway Media Insider Club, and Drudge gives them instant distribution that otherwise would have taken them months to build up on their own.
If the radical right-wing only knew (or cared) how to run a newspaper, maybe we would have been spared all this. The enterprise is apparently being bankrolled by Joe Allbritton's son, the last real publisher of the Washington Star, and guys like John Harris, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen never belonged at a place like the Post in the first place. Instead, the old Star just continues to metastasize through the media at large.
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No Democratic Nominee Passes Muster
[Read the article: Drudge and the Politico -- poisonously joined at the hip]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The presidential race is, indeed a popularity contest - but NOT among voters. It's a popularity contest among reporters and Beltway pundits, those high-school arbiters of who's kewl and who's not.
Right you are, Yellow Dog, only no Democratic nominee has won this popularity contest since 1964. The media even rehabilitated Richard Nixon in 1968, after many years of regarding him as distinctly "unkewl". Neither Carter nor Clinton enjoyed any "honeymoon" with the press. Even were the Democrats to nominate Joe Lieberman, the media narrative would be that Joe had to pander to the left in order to win the nomination.
As bad as the hit job on Howard Dean was, the hit job on John Kerry was worse -- Dean was still a long way from the nomination, but Kerry had a more unified party behind him than any nominee since, well, 1964. Kerry moreover had a long and distinguished career in public service. Yet he was belittled and marginalized relentlessly, so thoroughly that many on our side have taken to blaming the victim for his ill treatment.
It doesn't matter who the 2008 nominee will be -- given the history of the past 40 years, it is simply foolishly naïve to think that he or she will get any better treatment from today's mainstream media.