I have no response to that.
The increasingly incomparable Daily Howler on why we have the world we do and what we face as we try to change it—
For the record, Carlson had explained Gore’s lousy coverage in real time, in a way that was even more revealing. On Tuesday, October 10, 2000, Carlson appeared on Imus in the Morning to discuss press coverage of Bush and Gore’s first debate. As she noted, Gore was being slammed as a liar because of a few trivial misstatements. Much larger howlers were being ignored—misstatements by Bush about policy matters. Speaking with Imus, Carlson explained the press corps’ apparent double standard:
CARLSON (10/10/00): Gore’s fabrications may be inconsequential—I mean, they’re about his life. Bush’s fabrications are about our life, and what he’s going to do. Bush’s should matter more but they don’t, because Gore’s we can disprove right here and now. We can’t disprove that there’s going to be a chicken in every pot.
According to Carlson, the press had focused on what was easy. She explained in a bit more detail:
CARLSON: You can actually disprove some of what Bush is saying if you really get in the weeds and get out your calculator or you look at his record in Texas. But it’s really easy, and it’s fun, to disprove Gore.
It was “fun” to disprove Gore’s errors! Carlson took her presentation through one more startling iteration:
CARLSON: I actually happen to know people who need government, and so they would care more about the programs, and more about the things we kind of make fun of…But as sport, and as our enterprise, Gore coming up with another whopper is greatly entertaining to us. And we can disprove it in a way we can’t disprove these other things.
What an astonishing presentation! According to Carlson, the press was pursuing Gore’s trivial errors because it was “greatly entertaining” to do so. And why had they ignored Bush’s errors, which she found more significant? Because they weren’t as easy to disprove! According to Carlson, the press agenda had been set by what was “easy”—and “entertaining” and “fun.” It was “sport.”
For extra credit, factor in this amazing Eschaton post on the decline of academia in our political life and the concomitant rise of the think-tank echo chamber. Be sure to follow all the links—if not, you’ll miss Michael Bérubé’s decade-long one-two punch. (Unless, of course, you’ve already seen it. In which case, why hadn’t you told me about it?)
Days like this, I think there’s only one thing left to do, and that’s take Bérubé’s 1991 joke as a serious plan of action:
Just the other day a friend and I came up with the most pernicious academic scheme to date for toppling the West: he will kneel behind the West on all fours. I will push it backwards over him.
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I forget -- what was it that Gore said that was an actual lie, and not a media distortion to make it look like a lie? (e.g. the "I made the Internet" statement.)
Um, no, I'm not responsible for greasing a sociopathic asshole into the White House. I was just being a bitch.
It was fun.
You know, I was thinking about this earlier today - I think why I really dislike and distrust Bush the most, why I won't give him the benefit of the doubt that he means well even though I have close friends (oh well, relatives I care a lot about) who believe the same things he does - because like other spectacular "conversions" from bad behavior into being Saved (see Terry, Randall; Graham, Franklin; Robertson, Pat ad nauseam) he doesn't abase himself before God - he abases who he used to be before who he is now.
He thinks who is now is just fine.
I think someone who is supposed to be right with Jesus who thinks it's cute that the people he plans to kill don't want to die hasn't really paid enough attention to what that wacky Jesus guy was talking about.
Vengeance is mine, sayeth George Bush. God who?
Glenn Peters (one of the good Glenns) asks:
To the best of my knowledge, not one mother-damned God-fucking thing of more significance than what he had for lunch.
Some stuff Ampersand is reading today
Ornicus defends hate crimes legislation I read this post and kept on saying "yes! yes! That's it exactly!" Great quote from Prometheus 6 Just as you'd react one way if Ludacris called you "mah nigga" and another if Strom Thurmond did, the phrase "regar...