Into Tom Friedman's palatial office glided one of his many, interchangeable, vaguely androgynous assistants. From collar to crepe shoes Assistant #7 was dressed in the obligatory, all-black, Ninja-casual-by-of-Eddie-Bauer attire of TED Talk mic-runners.
Assistant #7 bore a small, white box, which was placed on Friedman's massive cocobolo desk.
Assistant #7 picked one of the ornate, $10,000 sandalwood command staves (one of those long sticks used to push flags around on a war room map) from the $200,000, hand-carved umbrella stand next to the desk and used the stave to slide the white box across the desk towards Friedman. The command staves were a gift from Friedman's very dear friend Bibi Netanyahu for Friedman's good service. The umbrella stand had been a gift from the late Ahmad Chalabi, also for Friedman's good service. Putting them together like that was apparently a private joke between Friedman and the Almighty which the assistants do not even pretend to understand.
Friedman accepted the box, dismissed Assistant #7, and slit the box open with the priceless, Shang dynasty jade knife that had been gifted to him by Xi Jinping for Friedman's good service.
The hike back from the desk to the massive, inlaid Brazilian Rosewood doors of Friedman's office takes about five minutes, so Assistant #7 was still within earshot when Freidman began weeping and pounding his desk with his tiny, old-man fists and moaning "Nooooo".
Assistant #7 had brought Friedman bad news.
The box contained curated copies of the Fox News text messages, emails and testimony from the Dominion Voting Systems court case that had been made public over the last week. These text, emails and testimony had all been widely available and reported, but had passed beneath Friedman's notice until now since there had been no plucky foreign cab driver available to tell him about it.
Friedman composed himself, flicked one of the intercom switches on his desk, and barked "Copy!' into the microphone. A nondescript voice -- that sounded as it it were coming from someone who was dressed, from collar to crepe shoes, in the obligatory, all-black, Ninja-Casual-by-Eddie-Bauer attire of TED Talk mic-runners -- replied "Ready."
Friedman began to dictate. Just fragments. Stray balloons, each bearing a basket of solid gold thought eggs, which he would stitch together later into a gilded balloon tapestry of words eggs.
It's called a "process" people. All the greats have one.
We’ve learned a lot in recent days about both Fox and Haley, the former South Carolina governor who has just started running for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Brief driftglass aside: No, in fact we knews all we ever needed to know about Fox News about a quarter of a century ago. And Nikki Haley gladly bent the knee to Trump, so a complete dead-loss there too.
Friedman continues with the balloon eggs:
We all sort of knew the truth about Fox, but now there can be no doubt...
Brief driftglass aside: "Now"? Really? Just now?
More balloon eggs:
Before, during and after the 2020 election, it was not crazy to assume that Fox’s main prime-time hosts — Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham — actually believed some of the pro-Trump, election-fraud conspiracy theories and theorists that they were putting on the air. But now we have learned...
Brief driftglass aside: "But now we have learned..."? Really? Again? And what the fuck is it with you beltway goofs handing out benefits of the doubt to traitors and pathological liars like you're passing out Funyun samples at a FritoLays trade show. No, no and no again. It was 100% crazy to assume that the Fox News congenital liars, with decades of lying experience behind them, believed for one second that the election-fraud sedition they were spouting was true.
More balloon eggs:
I’ve never met Haley, but from afar it seemed...
Say, do I smell that same famous Friedman brand of top-shelf, shoe leather "I've never been there, but trust me..." reportage that paved the way for Bush's Iraqi Clusterfuck?
Then comes the Friedman brand interminable list of things that shoulda/coulda happened.
She could have said...
Haley could have added...
Haley could have then pivoted to... "Legal immigrants grow our pie..."
Friedman in still unsure how pie works
Sure, that kind of speech would have challenged the Republican base, but I bet it would have energized many others — particularly independents and moderate Republicans looking for alternatives to Trump.
In this sense, "independents and moderate Republicans" are the electoral WMDs of American political journalism. Hacks like Friedman are absolutely sure they're out there somewhere, hidden but in great abundance...and their unshakable faith in the existence of vast numbers of independents and moderate Republicans ationalizes every other stupid thing they believe...despite the fact that people have been sifting the political sands for decades in search of independents and moderate Republicans and haven't found any.
And then comes the part where I just start banging my head on my tiny, plastic desk --
-- in time with In The Air Tonight.
Here’s Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal on Haley’s presidential announcement
For at least a generation, there have not been more than a dozen sentient human beings outside of Friedman's Beltway circle jerk who have cared one iota for what Nooners has thought about anything. And yet here she is, Wall Street Journal Peggers, being quotes by New York Times' Mustache of Understanding with real "That's it! Case closed!" energy.
Assistant #7 slipped out the door as Friedman shifted from lachrymose over his recent discovery that Fox News is a shithole of greed and perfidy to bellicose over his recent discovery that Fox News is a shithole of greed and perfidy. Friedman wasn't just up on his tiny feet, but had mounted the desk and was shaking his wee fists at the heavens, thundering that at least, by god, there remained Extremely Respectable media like The New York Times as a bulwark against those skeevy Conservatives and the filthy, lying media that gave them cover.
Walking back to wherever it is that such people go between errands, Assistant #7 passed the open door of Friedman's New York Times colleague, skeevy Conservative Bret Stephens, putting the finishing touches on his latest filthy, lying column for the Extremely Respectable media that gives both him and David French and David Brooks and Stephen's ex-wife Pamela Paul and Tom Friedman cover.
The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?
“Do something” is not science, and it shouldn’t have been public policy.
By Bret Stephens
The public reaction to Stephens' column was swift and abundant.
In today’s column from Bret Stephens — https://t.co/nz89oeceXB — he writes triumphantly that a research study has shown unambiguously that mask mandates on the population level don’t work. Compare the column with what the cited study actually concludes (below).
— Craig Gurian (@pursuethefacts) February 22, 2023
Geez. pic.twitter.com/pcD9kvpGpC
The NY Times lost me as a subscriber when they took Bret Stephens on as an opinion writer. https://t.co/oak9GbZov8
— Joan Walton (@HandibodeJ) February 22, 2023
Bret Stephens: Masks Don't Work, Says Science* (*Science Does Not Say This) by @SER1897 https://t.co/7LBBRBLoFM
— Wonkette (@Wonkette) February 22, 2023
The @nytimes' Bret Stephens prints the outright false claim that we have "rigorous," "comprehensive" evidence that even N95 masks do absolutely nothing. This is dangerous and wrong. pic.twitter.com/uIgZyk1lfL
— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) February 22, 2023
The idea of putting Stephens and David French and David Brooks and Stephen's ex-wife Pamela Paul and Tom Friedman all together under the same masthead, all bitching about incompetence, lying and the terrible bad faith of those people over there while never daring to glance at each other, is apparently a private joke between the Sulzberger family and the Almighty which the assistants do not even pretend to understand.
6 comments:
What I do not understand is how the NYT still has subscribers outside its adamantine microbubble of filch and merely rich.
Sadly, this is America.
Thanks for all you do.
"How can good people bear such stupidity and live?"
(with apologies to Blind Alfred Reed)
Bravo DG!
The mark of a hack is when they purport to write an upcoming speech for a politician. Thus one is after the fact: "could have said." Ugh.
Not sure what folks expect when a "News" media network hires garbage men and sewage sanitation workers to present news to cherubic.
I mean it is not even case to those water purifiers that takes urine and processes it to be drinkable. For at least the impurities are extracted.
d-glass, sir:
if if i didn't know better than i would make comparisons such as the NYT is fox lite as it's MO is different but its goals are quite similar...make money safe for those with money, extract money from those who have some left to extract and to keep this musical chairs game of serving wealth going while serving up distraction....
the habermans and the murdocks are really quite different...well different accents anyway.
and fox rarely has recipes but the NYT often has them...so yeah, different.
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