http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1078448WIMBLEHACK!
The search for America's worst campaign journalist has begun.
By Matt Taibbi
taibbi@nypress.com
THESE LAST FEW WEEKS of the presidential election campaign season are turning out to be not a whole lot different than the last peaceful hours before a prostatectomy. That is, a brief moment of fatalistic calm before something painful and unavoidable, something you were dreading when it was far off, but something that is easier to face now that you know it will all soon be over.
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It is hard to imagine anything more meaningless, underhanded, vapid, shameless, pointlessly vicious, embarrassing, uninspiring, degrading and even unentertaining than this billion-dollar daily exchange of sneering teenage accusations between the Bush and Kerry camps. And it is hard to imagine anything more galling than the unspoken media subtext of the election—the idea that this slime-fest somehow represents an important moment, a landmark memory, in our own lives. The implication that we're such losers that we would actually want to watch this crap 24 hours a day for 15 or 16 months is almost more appalling than the behavior of the candidates themselves.
Though we're tempted to blame the politicians, it's time to dig deeper. It's time to blame the press corps that daily brings us this unrelenting symphony of horseshit and never comes within 1000 miles of an apology for any of it. And it's time to blame the press not only as a class of people, but as individuals. We must brand anyone who puts his name or his face on credulous campaign coverage an eternal Enemy of the State. Hopefully, over time, this will have a deterrent effect.
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>>>>on Debra Orin, New York Post:
IT'S ALWAYS A LITTLE surprising to remember that the New York Post has a "Washington Bureau Chief" filing ostensibly factual stories from the Hill about the movements of the president and other real, breathing government officials. The effect of reading these touchingly earnest impersonations of credible journalism is a little like watching Koko the gorilla play with a kitten, or punch the "buttons" on a toy telephone. My god, you think. It's so human!