Letters to the Editor
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Remember the issue -- content, or rather the absence thereof
He's Max Headroom! Moronically cheerful computer generated TV anchor, alleged possessor of Artificial Intelligence, but really just a mindless mouthpiece for government propaganda and corporate marketing, -- DanJoaquinOz
I recall Max Headroom as being a little more macho... but my memory may be faulty.
Truth is, the responsibility for the tepid, moribund nature of mainstream news lie with the producers and managers; pretty talking heads, however tiresome, are not the main problem. John King is 'the problem' to the extent that he has editorial/managerial control over what he does. A number of seemingly well-informed letter writers indicated that he has significant editorial control over what he appears in, and the tone of the interviews as aired. (The letters that indicated this were written in response to Glenn's last dust-up with The Beautiful One.)
I suspect John King deserves the beating he's receiving from Glenn and from others in this letters page -- but he deserves it because of his control over content and presentation -- not because he resembles Max Headroom.
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The point is, CO
No matter how critical this issue is now, it will be the simplest of problems the next president will have to deal with. If we elect the right person, it will virtually disappear as soon as they are sworn in. Then the real work begins.
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Samba de uma nota só
Aych, I'm not suggesting you aren't welcome here - certainly you have your own unique contribution even when you sort of shoehorn every discussion into the Wo(S)D - but have you considered starting your own blog, and developing a readership on this issue?
Again, I'm not trying to give you the bum's rush. It's just that you aren't the "only person who wants to talk about this..." - it's just that other things are being talked about here.
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Thanks
to Bystander, Jeanette and Gordon -- I knew that, at this blog, even a comment section request would produce what I was looking for, and probably should have asked earlier.
Prizes forthcoming.
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Roger Clemens: Round, round get around I get around...
Well, ol' Roger the Dodger may not get away with it. We'll see.
-- Dirigo
Hey, beats 'Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.
I know you're just jokin' so don't take my provided information for anything but provided information. Roger has never been a Dodger. He's played for the Yankees, Red Sox, the Astros and the Blue Jays.
Oh, oh. I'd better watch it. Yesterday I got balled out by some of the commentariat for talking baseball.
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Kudos, Gordon
You found a Real, Serious, Professional Journalism source! Good job!
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You can also see Olbermann interview Harman here:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/26/countdown-rep-harman-gives-more-details-on-bogus-terror-threat-on-capitol/
I see that Bystander was the first one with a link, so I don't think I deserve a prize. (Unless that prize is an autographed photo of John King!)
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@ aycharaych
Hysteria has been institutionalized in laws other than those governing drug use, and other kinds of perfectly innocuous behavior have been singled out for selective enforcement and draconian punishments.
Last week there was a knock on my front door. When I opened it, an off-duty police officer handed me an 8 1/2 x 11 full color flyer. At the top were a pair of shields -- the symbol of the town police department -- flanking a bold headline. It was the official notice, required by law, of a sex offender moving into my neighborhood. It included his name, address, occupation and a large photograph. There was also a small-print disclaimer that anyone who harassed the man, or duplicated the flyer, could be subject to legal penalties of his own.
Only when I read all the way to the bottom of the flyer did I discover that this 34 year-old man had been convicted -- at the age of 17 -- for molesting a 15 year-old girl. Under Arizona law, he must carry this mark of Cain for the rest of his life. Under that same law, had it been in effect at the time I was 17, I might well have the cops following me around as well, even though I'm now in my sixties.
Admittedly such laws don't result in the number of incarcerations, torment and injustice on a nation-wide scale that our drug laws do, but they are, on the face of it, just as corrupt.
My point, aych, is that the injustices of the drug war are a symptom, not a cause, and that the causes might be addressed more effectively by adding a few more valves to your trumpet.
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Difficult issues
It's all difficult because pretty boys like King are only interested in looking good, hanging with other pundits and pseudo-journalists. He spends more time at the gym and shopping for Brioni suits than he does doing basic research on issues that are important--or should be, given his job. At the last debate he repeated the GOP talking point that "the surge is working." Clinton smacked him down, but it's not the first time I've heard King say exactly the same thing. He is just a shill. Well-coiffed, well-dressed, and well-manicured, but a shill nonetheless.
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"If you did a little research..."
A few people have brought up Glenn's email exchange with King over King's McCain interview a while back:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/01/16/king/index.html
It is surreal to go back and read King's email in light of today's post:
King to Greenwald: "Since the site suggests you have law training, maybe you forgot that good lawyers to [sic] a little research before they spit out words."
Good reporters are also generally expected to do a little research before they spit out words.
King to Greenwalk: "If you did a little research (there he goes with that word again) you would find I have had my share of contentious moments with him over the years."
If you did a little research. Is this irony or just outright stupidity?
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Mad Magazine
Unless that prize is an autographed photo of John King!)
-- Jeanette D
Let me guess. Your "What, Me Worry" picture on your dart board is all worn out?
http://tinyurl.com/2qw8le
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Worse even
Maybe the reason that George Bush and Dick Cheney wanted him in this most vital position is because he is as willing as anyone around to make all sorts of fact-free claims in pursuit of their political agenda.
The extent to which this administration has politicized absolutely everything is frightening to behold. It's not like were weren't warned by the first few actually competent professionals (that were, of course, summarily driven from their posts by this craven band of freaks) that something shocking was happening. Paul O'Neill and Richard Clarke, among many others, tried to warn the country that these guys cared about absolutely nothing outside of political loyalty, in every single decision they make. But even now, it's still hard to fathom the extent to which they've tossed aside every possibly principled choice that they could ever make in order to further their purely partisan goals.
I don't even bother to wonder anymore whether there might be a possibility that either some person they've chosen or decision they've made has some random chance of producing something other than a tightly controlled political outcome.
I also think they've finally pushed even previously loyal Republicans too far in their utterly monarchical approach in attempting to build Perpetual Republican Rule. I've really wondered at times during the last few years whether Americans care anymore about, or had somehow lost the ability to spot, almost absolutely corrupt, almost absolute power. But that seems to be changing. And I think the price these criminals will pay when we learn what really went on up there will be a dear one.
I hope I'm not mistaken, but I believe we will end up learning about some of the more frightening abuses of power that these guys have managed, and that when we do it will be the start of a long and painful discovery of just exactly what went on from 2000-present. Abuse of power on this scale is reminiscent of the the kinds that drove Americans to break away from Monarchy in the first place, and I have to believe it is still anathema to the current American Zeitgeist.
Certainly the fact that we have hacks like John King dominating the MSM means we barely have a functioning press in America today, but the Right Wing Noise Machine, that aided and abetted the abuses we are seeing, has started to grate on Americans much more than the suits at CNN yet realize. And when the truth eventually starts to emerge, which it will, about what exactly went on under the Bush Admistration, and how extreme the abuses we discover will be, the MSM and the talking heads tha now run it are going to find themselves having to answer some hard questions about how this was allowed to happen. The short answer will be that in a functioning democracy with a functioning press, this isn't allowed to happen. It will then become clear that for some time now in America, we've had neither.