Wolcott - Howling Wolf

[realFedUp]

http://jameswolcott.com/

James Wolcott:

Over at Daily Howler, demolition expert Bob Somerby tears apart New York Times reporter Robert Worth limb by tiny limb for his fatuous front-page article on the privileged lives of Bush and Kerry, where of course Bush is deemed the more authentic. See, Kerry still exudes a "Brahmin reserve" and speaks proper English where Bush manages to come across as a regular son of toil tending a ton of soil at his sagebrush ranch. Worth's worthless foray into class analysis is an example of something I've complained about before, the utter slumming of our media elite...men and women who attended the top universities in this country, prize the clever juggling of language and ironies among their peers, and yet when it comes to politicians ally themselves with the monosyllabic cliche-mongers.

Democrats like Gore and Kerry have to weigh and calibrate their every move because one ill-chosen word or phrase or gesture will be tattooed across their foreword by the media's trained monkeys. I mean, Kerry will have to be very careful how he introduces Christopher Reeve's name into the stem-cell argument because the press will be waiting to pounce on any sign of emotional opportunism on his part. Whereas Bush can continue to talk slop and get a free pass, just as Reagan did whenever he tipped his head to the side and sawdust leaked out of his ear. I was naive enough to think that Bush's tantrum the other night at the townhall debate would get at least half of the coverage and mockery that Howard Dean's infamous scream received, which was foolish of me. Our great editors and pundits have apparently decided to avert their eyes from a rageaholic president with presenile dementia who needs to have answers fed to him from a boxy receiver because--well, at least he's not conceited.

The New York Times under editor Bill Keller is a political catastrophe. He's worse than Howell Raines, but smart enough to stay under the radar and not make Times coverage seem like his personal mission. Worth's worthless front page article is only one example of the manure-shoveling the paper has been doing on Bush's behalf, feeding the fury that paper's ombudsman Daniel Okrent finds so inexplicable.

10.11.04 1:08PM

[dave123williams]

1. I know Dan Okrent personally...

He's a good man, but (IMHO) is a bit of an ivory-tower-dweller. Guys like Dan tend to take the view from 30,000 feet, never getting overly emotional about their positions, and are genuinely amazed when they run in to real passion.

Just my $0.02.

[KoKo]

4. Well, pass along to him that they now have "online readers" and they

are "out of touch." What was good for NYC and Beltway DC isn't cutting it with what's going on out in REAL AMERICA.

NYT's obsession with 9/11 has biased their coverage. Maybe they ought to realize that most of America wasn't there that day but is suffering for what happened from an entirely different perspective.

I used to live in Manhattan...I know the New York Culture...but NYC isn't the center of things like it used to be when I was there. America has moved West and to the South East...it's a different crowd.

I read the NYT's on vacation for two weeks this Summer and was shocked at how the emphasis was so insular. I read them online most of the time or get links from articles of interest here on DU. I would never buy it in NC. It's "out of touch" for a print read. Judith Miller and Tom Friedman being glaring examples of "insular reporting and opinion."

I'm sure everyone who works there is sincere in what they do. But, either they stay a NY Centrist newspaper or they start to realize that there are more folks out there...who aren't going to be satisfied with their inbred views. They require registration to read them online. Meaning they really need those "hits" for Ad Bucks.

Howell Raines and this new guy, neither seem to get it. :shrug:

[The Zanti Regent]

5. Okrent is living in a LASSEIZ-FAIRYLAND

I was shocked beyond words when he disclosed the names of people sending complaining e-mails to him.

He is completely IGNORANT about the fact that MILLIONS don't believe a single word in every issue of the SCREW YORK TIMES.

I wish I was able to sit on my butt and ignore reality for a six figure salary like this corporate welfare whore.

You can tell Danny that he's even more of an incompetent ass than Nero was. The whole country is on fire and this jackass just wants to tune his fiddle and play "Turkey In The Straw"...

[NYCGirl]

2. Thanks for reminding me to pop over to Wolcott's site. He's a treasure.

And here's another goodie:

Empty Volcano
Posted by James Wolcott

For much of last night's debate George Bush looked like a blister about to pop. Loud, mouthy, swaggering, interested only in hearing himself lay down the law, he behaved like a verbally abusive husband. Not a wifebeater but a browbeater with a bar-fighter's grin. It is astonishing and sobering that this dull roar with a one-track mind that runs on tank treads is fighting for reelection instead of facing impeachment; his lies and failures have fed thousands of graves, and filled thousands more hospital beds with bodies and psyches that will never be whole again. And still our mainstream pundits can not, will not see him for what he is. He cracks a corny joke, and they marvel at his Reaganesque humor. He hollers at Charlie Gibson, and he's hailed as a take-charge guy.

Bush reminded me most of Pat Buchanan last night, not perhaps the best model to imitate if you're courting independents and women. The same judo chop to emphasize a point, the same hot-temperature demeanor and rhetoric, the same empty machismo masquerading as decisiveness. Here we have multimillionaire pundits who pride themselves on being knowledgable, articulate, capable of taking issues and personalities apart and examining them from different angles and reassembling them--and they swoon over someone who is none of these things, like intellectual jocksniffers in a locker room listening to some athlete grunt platitudes. They use words for a living, but distrust any politician who treats words with care, or even acts as if words might have meanings. Bush throws words as if they were rocks picked up in a playground, and they treat him like Roger Clemons.

But just as the MSNBC panel, which ought to be shipped to Guantanamo for the duration of the election season, blundered so badly after the Cheney-Edwards debate, the pundits didn't seem to recognize what was happening in front of their eyes last night. As Pauline Kael used to say after reading the reviews of certain movie critics, "It's hard to believe they were actually looking at the screen." Fortunately, the cable-news spinmeisters seem to matter less and less in the framing of the debate reaction--they've insulted the viewers' sense of reality too many times.

The sanest debate analysis I heard last night came from Fox News' Chris Wallace, who was a guest on Charlie Rose after Charlie had subjected us to some deadbeats. Wallace came across as someone thinking for himself rather than inhaling fumes, and he saw that it was Kerry who was persuasively presidential last night, a perception that may widen over the coming days as the footage of Bush hollering like a hogcaller are replayed to a cringing nation.

[shrub chipper]

3. I liked this one from "Hey There Georgie Boy"

I can't decide who's worse, Cokie Roberts or NBC's Andrea Mitchell. Maybe it's like the controversy that once raged over who was the worse actress, Candace Bergen or Ali MacGraw, and Pauline Kael's answer was: Whichever one you're watching at that moment.

Cokie revealed that after the townhall debate, the audience members clustered around Bush, leaving Kerry a rather lonely figure, thus feeding the meme that Bush is more likeable than Kerry (a Beltway truism belied by recent poll data). She then said that if Bush could mingle with 200 million or so voters, he'd have the election sewn up.

Of course what a Cokie is never going to tell the audience is that Bush can't and won't mingle that freely because his crowds are throughly vetted to keep unfriendlies or even neutrals away from the exhibit. His "likeability" is a complete guarded construct, his rallies a gated community on wheels.

[KoKo]

6. Just going over to his site and reading older columns is a treat...

Thanks!