Friday, May 18, 2007

Captain Obvious


Goes bucking for Commodore.

Every now and then as I run barefoot over the burning shores of the NYT, I catch a glint of Tom Friedman talking about, say, energy policy. Like a shiny nickel washed up along a great swath of poo, catching the light just so.

And I nod and I say “Good on you” and then scamper away, because man, the reek at high tide’d knock a dung beetle out of Fred Phelps’ mouth. And for, oh, about a minute I indulge the notion that one of the most highly paid, highly regarded, highly quoted, best selling, A-listed op-ed columnists for America’s paper of record is not a vulgar and irredeemable idiot.

That maybe he doesn’t deserve to be cast into ignoble oblivion. Reduced to writing, say, lunch menu specials at IHOP (“A cab driver in Bangalore assured me that these pecan waffles in a peach compote are genuinely Vishnulicious!”) or ghosting the “Turn Ons/Turn Offs” for “Ass Fancier” centerfolds.

And then I read something like this (Behind the NYT blast wall, a snip if which is transcribed here) and I get cranky all over again.


They actually thought they could unite Iraq, while dividing America.

Whenever Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney had a choice between seeking political advantage at home or acting in a bipartisan fashion to buy more unity, time and space to do all the heavy lifting needed in Iraq, they opted for political advantage.

When Franklin Roosevelt fought World War II, he made a conservative Republican, Henry Stimson, his secretary of war and did all he could to hold the country together. The Bush- Cheney team, by contrast, summoned us to D-Day and then treated it like it was just another political wedge issue, whenever it suited them.

It has not worked. As Leon Wieseltier, literary editor of The New Republic, put it:
“You cannot govern like Winston Churchill some of the time and like Grover Norquist most of the time.”


First my mind wanders momentarily away from Captain Obvious to contemplating his employers and I wonder what kind of feeble-minded, inbred, tasteless Peter Keatings must be running the place?

Seriously, it is one of those questions that just nags at me: In a world quite literally overflowing with talented, literate, pungent writers, how in the world do utterly talentless, debased hacks like Friedman and Brooks find themselves at the very pinnacle of the mediaverse?

I know the general answer -- Market forces compacting competent journalism into the ever more Procrustean Bed of Entertaining InfoHappyBytes. The rise of the Hatekrieg Xian Right blasting away at the press for 30 year, shellshocking them into giving the out lame, the crazy and the outright liars ever more column inches and prime time space in the name of Holy “Balance”. The deliberate murder of the Fairness Doctrine by Reagan, Bork and Scalia (That was just for you, Ivory Bill Woodpecker). -- but I still think the particular, specific answers would be interesting.

I still dream of going full Patrick McGoohan on NYT Chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., President and CEO Janet L. Robinson, Executive Editor Bill Keller and Editorial Page Editor Andrew M. Rosenthal.

Muse that whisking them off to The Village

for some fun, frolic and Pentathol would yield some remarkable and gag-inducing results.

And then my mind wanders back the fact of Captain Obvious and I just want to wish him into the cornfield.

Preferably just before the threshers roll in so that the Captain can be reaped and processed into something useful.

Like, say, ethanol.

There would be something satisfyingly poetic about that.

Because, Tom, how in the fuck dare you be surprised? How dare you?

For thirty years the GOP has campaigned and governed on a deep and abiding hatred for government generally, and those who believe in using government as a sword and a shield against the excesses of both unfettered capitalism and theocracy specifically.

For thirty years the GOP has plainly tattooed “Welcome All Loonies” on its ass in forty-foot-high Day-Glo letters, bent over and grabbed its ankles and beckoned the scum of the nation to take a jolly electoral rump-tango with the Party of Lincoln. It has openly, sluttishly enticed the Dobsons, the Gingrichs and the Coulters into it’s “Big Tent”, while driving out the Goldwaters, the Deans and the Phillipses.

It has not just practiced a hyperMcCarthesque politics of rend and rule, it is fucking proud of it.

It has been a little over 80 years since Adolph Hitler publish “Mein Kampf” in which he explained in some detail what he intended to do: He intended to conquer Europe, kill 20 million Russians, and exterminate the Jews. He was very clear about all of this and methodically set out to check each atrocity off of his "To Do" list while a chorus of the Tom Friedman’s of the age said, over and over again until it was far too late, “Well he can’t really mean it.

"He won’t really do it.”

It cost civilization a bloody world war in which millions died and whole nations were destroyed to stop the planet from being tipped mechanized Dark Ages from which is may never have recovered. And one of the casualties that perished in rubble of the Third Reich was the excuse that, when evil people tell you what they plan to do, they don’t really mean it.

Of course they mean it. In fact they say it extra loud and clear to recruit others to their depraved cause.

And so now live in a nation where a portrait of Karl Rove ripping the Constitution in half and then taking a dump on, rampant on field of Klansmen it practically the GOP Family Crest…and yet here we find Captain Obvious actually putting pen to paper to express how Shocked!Shocked! he is to discover that the GOP actually means what it says.

And then offering this bit of helpful advice to Democrats:

...
“Democrats need to be careful, though, that they don’t let their rage with the hypocrisy of Mr. Bush make them totally crazy, and blind them to the fact that they — we — still need a credible plan to deal with the very real threat to open societies posed by Islamist terrorism.”
...


Fuck you, Tom. I take back what I said: no IHOP job for you.

In a sane world anyone who exhibits this dizzying combination of blithering obliviousness and effrontery to such an extent that they:
A) Actually say out loud that they’re stunned that the GOP is acting exactly as they said they would and have for the last 30 years and,

B) Urgently council the only people in a credible position to oppose their rising fascist tide to pull their punches…

would never be allowed near a pen again.

Unless their intention is to commit honorable, Mont Blanc seppuku.

In which case, Tom,

c’mon and belly up to the bar.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does it say something about people that they didn't really believe Hitler/Repubs? Willfully stupid or just so naive that they simply couldn't believe that someone could be so evil? Is one better than the other? Unfortunatly, the repub base WANTS this sort of stuff to occur. all 27% were there at the debates appluading the jack Bower question about torture. Those people scare the shit out of me - for applauding, and the candidates for not calling bullshit on such a question. These people WANT the right to choose to go away, they want torture, they want what they believe to be a valid excuse to support these things. They're llike greedy little kids - "Well, Daddy SAID it's okay to nuke Iran, and he's in charge of the country so God must have wanted him to be there, so he must be right and I support him."
Makes me physically ill.

Anonymous said...

The natural consequence of dismissal, strike that, demonization of all things not expressly vetted and approved by the GOP code talkers of the last 30 years,-most of whom have either resigned in scandal, disgrace or exiled to allow collective amnesia to wash away the blatant foulness (ala Newt)-,
is the near total elimination of acceptable solutions. For to do so would admit the shallow, vaccuous basis for the GOP dream.

To hear the shrill chorus, still echoing the sub-harmonies and back beat of such consistently wrong and bad and addled and backwards thinking is further proof that the exposed right believes itself still right despite all evidence to the contrary.

If you contemplate how "out there" candidate Kuchinich is considered, you realize just how far off course the good ship really is.

Seppuku is a path of honor. A path not known nor visible to such as these. But it would be a fitting end.

Thanks for the chance to dream it.

Your reward should you decide to claim it now shelves an 18yr. Macallan.

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

Thanx for the shoutout, Driftmeister.

One of the strengths of the 27% is that the rest of us simply cannot imagine such evil, so we assume they must be indulging in hyperbole rather than the grim fact that they are literally speaking what passes for their minds.

Can these people be redeemed? If yes, how?

Mister Roboto said...

Preferably just before the threshers roll in so that the Captain can be reaped and processed into something useful.

Good thing I recently gave up refined sugar products. I don't much fancy the idea of drinking a Friedman-carcass-sweetened grape soda. ("Why is this grape soda so flat and bland?")

Phil said...

Sounds like he has been sucking the Cheetos crumbs from between Jonah Goldbergs toes.

Anonymous said...

kimberly: "...the repub base WANTS this sort of stuff to occur. all 27% were there at the debates appluading the jack Bower question about torture...."

Yet more evidence of the utter moral bankruptcy of the modern G.O.P. and conservatism.

cieran said...

Fifteen years ago, Noam Chomsky predicted this degeneration of the corporate media.

And fifteen years before that, Paddy Chayefsky authored a screenplay with that same bland vision of our media future.

So here's one more example of how we've known for thirty years where we're going, yet as a nation we can't seem to find a way off this awful highway.

And then we found you!

Castle Driftglass: the last exit before media hell...

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

Not enough of us have wanted to leave this awful highway because not enough of us have considered it, or its destination, awful.

I hope that will change in 2008.

jurassicpork said...

Hey! I posted that Friedman article over at my place!

Sometimes it's slow over at Pottersville.

Anonymous said...

JP.... I think we've reached the point of criminal saturation... where the MSM just...might.... pick the lock on the filing cabinet and take a peeksee into the records of obvious criminality.

Re: Seriously, it is one of those questions that just nags at me: In a world quite literally overflowing with talented, literate, pungent writers, how in the world do utterly talentless, debased hacks like Friedman and Brooks find themselves at the very pinnacle of the mediaverse?

That's easy Drift, the MSM wants cooks that cook what's on the menu...exactly like the boss wants... nice, bland pablum (nothin too spicy now) ...don't wanna upset the readers now do we?

Ivory Bill Woodpecker said...

Readers shmeaders--they don't want to upset the advertisers. The beginning of the decline of the US press began when newspapers started earning more money from advertisers than from readers, and so became more interested in pleasing advertisers than readers.

cieran said...

Ivory Bill Woodpecker is right on the mark with the notion of the press being more interested in pleasing advertisers than readers.

And therein lies the death spiral for the corporate media, because well-informed citizens (i.e., those who tend to have the disposable incomes that advertisers covet) read newspapers for information, not for ads.

But we can get better (i.e., more accurate, more timely, more trustworthy) information via weblogs, so the best blogs are cheaper and better than the corporate press, hence the migration from "reading the Times" to "Reading Driftglass and Jane and Glenn and Digby and..."

And what's not to like about that?

Anonymous said...

Gee... isn't this the same Tom Friedman who said, in an online discussion in "Slate", that, as a result of Sept 11, it was absolutely necessary to "go into the heart of the Arab world and blow something up" to prove we were serious about fighting the extremists? THAT Tom Friedman?

Buttermilk Sky said...

I'm sorry. Grover Norquist ruled what country?