For those of you who didn’t know, we had a “weather event” here in the Puget Sound this week. While warmer temperatures and rain mean that the snow is now just white patches on the lawns, driveways, and roofs of homes, the power outages from the tree limbs brought down by the ice still linger. This meant that we had no church this morning. And what it meant to me was that while I was taking care of a bunch of laundry, I watched “This Week with Georgey Demomouthpiece”.
I now understand some things that used to puzzle me, and I saw at least one moment of unvarnished and unspun truth that spoke volumes, and yet made no impact in the discussion the various wags were having on the screen.
First, after listening to these people who live very comfortably in their journolistic bubbles talk about their opinions on what they see as being the decisive events of the last week, the magnitude of the disservice that these people do to the country hit me like a ton of bricks. I don’t pity the people who rely on them to help to shape and warp their opinions on politics; I pity the Republic that is being damaged by people who, like good lemmings, have decided that it is imperative that Mitt Romney release his tax returns, but didn’t feel any burning need to delve into the minutia of the current President’s life…little things like his grades, how he made HIS money, his prowess as a consitutional law professor, or what he wrote while on the Harvard Law Review. The longer I watched, the more I understood how the politicians and the talking heads always seem so disconnected. The only people they pay attention to are each other. But when I thought about it, it made sense, in a perverse and twisted way. After all, they all went to “the best” schools, making them uniquely qualified to analyze events through the lenses so carefully fitted on them in those institutions of higher indoctrination. This is why it is an acceptable practice to wishcast when reality doesn’t match the script they carefully wrote, and why it is acceptable to scorn those who do not share their enlightened world view.
As the hour progressed, we were treated to a short bit about the “importance of math” in this campaign that was almost painful in its juvenility. The old guard of alphabet networks has indeed fallen far when they waste airtime on a piece that isn’t worthy of moveon.org or other simplistic leftwing websites and blogs.
And then the inevitable discussion by the panel on “what Gingrich’s victory in South Carolina means”. The Democratic shills from The Nation and ABC were only too happy to offer their meaningless opinions, but then George Will spoke up, and stated that the prospect of Gingrich as the candidate “must horrify the GOP”. The look on his face betrayed the unmistakable fact that the thought of Gingrich as the candidate horrified HIM.
I have my issues with each of the candidates, but whenever I hear a member of the “approved media” talking about them, all I hear is a chasm between those who are reporting the story, and those who will eventually make the story. The disconnect is jarring, and I foresee a time when the little emperors realize that they are only talking to themselves.
That day can’t come fast enough.
Taxes, Stupidity, and Death 
George Will sometimes provides a good service, but more often than not, he’s a moderate Republican at best, frozen in time in the Washington Dinner crowd. George is at home with WAPO folks. David Frum with a better vocabulary.
There was a time I kind of liked Will, even had a few of his books, but now I find him a small piece of the weak portion of the Republican party – the establishment. Their dying on the grave vine and don’t know it. .
And people are rebelling against that establishment – both Republican and Lib. These media idiots are always going on about how unpopular Congress is, but one glance of any Republican debate proves, the most loathed industry in America is the dinosaur media. As popular as the clap.
I used to be a regular watcher of that Sunday morning jazz, but since David Brinkley passed, it’s a real snoozer anymore.
One thing you said really does hit home. I caught wind of it many years ago during the Murrah Building bombing in OKC. Since I was in the neighborhood, I had second hand account of what was going down. Therefore, I could measure reality of what was happening on the ground against what was reported. The inaccuracy of the MSM was mind boggling, convincing me that the AP, Reuters and the Network lackeys are worse than useless.
😳 they are dying on the grape vine.
I doubt they will either realize it or care and I guess that shows just another angle of the disconnect.
I say we kill em all and go with the reset 2.0 option. A radical approach… yep. And I will be happy to retreat from that position as soon as someone offers a viable solution to the problem (keyword viable). The MSM are nothing more than propagandists, there is no “objectivity” they have no “ethics”, they have no interest in the greater good. They are a clear and present threat to our freedom, they are censors of knowledge and truth. They blatantly lie by omission, they blatantly lie to our face and no one holds them accountable and it isn’t going to stop until something bad happens to them.
It was a JOKE. Everything doesn’t have to be weighed down with gravity BiW.
Will went further than that and suggested do we really want Gingrich with the codes to the bomb? This has been a recurring theme with George Will and one I actually appreciate. The POTUS can do a lot more damage than GWB did. Give the nutty professor the keys to our “weapons of mass destruction” and lives may never be the same. So you’re damn right the prospect horrified Will and I don’t think he actually tried to hide that.
Sounds to me like the “politics of resentment” there BiW. Is Gingrich your man? And let’s not pretend you’re some “man of the people”. You are the product of an advanced education. With the exception of Tex, I’m guessing you have more education than most of your readers. Your critique of it therefore rings a bit hollow.
Finally, you neglected to mention one thing in the broadcast that I observed that should brighten your spirits. Katrina Vanden Huevel was pretty much ignored. Whenever she got “the mic” she launched into either a 99% lecture or a Citizen’s United indictment and on at least one occasion Matthew Dowd interrupted her and dismissed what she was saying and in another instance the host himself George S, essentially passed over one of her comments.
Now if we wanna get pissed about something trivial on This Week, it would be the way they have wrecked “In Memoriam”. I’m all for honoring the war dead but I also want to know who else of note has died during the week. George seems to now be limiting this to war dead only, Of course that makes room for him to do his egotistical “ask George” segment. BARF!!!!
I’m seriously considering replacing “This Week” with “Face the Nation” in my Sunday lineup, Bob Schieffer is a straight shooter!
Oh Lord. We’ve got someone completely deluded, unless that was parody.
Bob Schieffer is so politically left, that he makes Dan Rather blush. You should save your Sunday mornings and go back to listening to Crazy Larry if that is your solution.
If you really think Lawrence O’Donnell and Bob Schieffer belong in the same league then it is you who are suffering from delusions.
It was a JOKE.
No. Jokes are funny.
Sounds to me like the “politics of resentment” there BiW.
Rutherford, the only thing I resent about them is the fact that they are unmistakably wedded to the belief that that their opinions are the only ones that are legitimate, and that everyone else needs to see it their way. They all live in the same bubble, and they can’t even see it, and yet the rest of us are the dumb ones.
Is Gingrich your man?
The only thing that excites me about the prospect of a Gingrich candidacy is the thought of Barack Obama being made to look like the fool he is in the debates, and as appealing as that is, it isn’t a good reason for him to be “my man”.
And let’s not pretend you’re some “man of the people”. You are the product of an advanced education. With the exception of Tex, I’m guessing you have more education than most of your readers. Your critique of it therefore rings a bit hollow.
I’m not knocking actual education. I’m rightly criticizing those who have attended “the right schools”, and the arrogance that comes with such an indoctrination. I’ve known Harvard and Yale grads who seriously could not think their way out of a wet paper bag, and yet these are the same people who think nothing of telling the rest of us how to think and how to live.
As for my own background, I grew up in a shop town. My Dad was a teacher, as was most of his family. Some of my friends’ parents who were skilled trades in the shop made more than he did. My Mom has spend most of her life working retail jobs. Most of the people I grew up with were part of solidly blue collar families. My experiences are completely foreign to 98% of the Washington cocktail set, and I find their condescension and arrogance to be sickening, so don’t even attempt to put me in the same sphere with them.
Hear, hear BIC. I at least know one Harvard educated mathematician that will call the incurrence of over $6,000,000,000,000 of debt in a matter of four years with little or nothing to show for it, qualification for another four years of the Presidency.
Patronizing is right. If there is one thing I have confirmed to myself anymore the last three years, is never feel inferior minded to anyone claiming an Ivy League education.
Other than my father, who was educated as a teacher with a B.S. degree and a partial M.S., I am a first generation college graduate.
P.S. – I’m not sure I would consider myself as educated as you either. Two professional degrees exceeds my collegiate expertise.
Don’t you have two college degrees plus an MBA not to mention post-graduate medical school work? I think that makes you highly educated.
We are missing the point entirely when we talk about education and who has more. I don’t care. I’d take someone who dropped out of high school at this point if he had the ability to see the issues that we truly face and deal with them in a common sense manner. I’d also take a guy with five Harvard degrees if he could do likewise.
Our failure at this point is one of prioritization. When you rack up as much debt as we have racked up, without anything to show for it, we need to face that first and foremost.
I want a candidate that will stand up and say that it is no longer the Federal Government’s job to actively stand in the way of economic development. I want a candidate that will realize that local issues are best dealt with locally. I want a candidate that will seriously review why we are still providing defense for the Eurpoean countries and therefore allowing them to subsidize programs for their citizens at our expense. I want a candidate that will drastically reduce the size and scope of the Federal government back to the size it was in 1998 – those bygone days of horror when people were eating each other ont he streets because the Federal government was being somewhat fically responsible. Heck, I’d even take a roll back to 2005.
Goober talks sense IMHO.
BiW I get the feeling you take a huge leap when it comes to Ivy League grads. I think you make huge assumptions about the folks on TV who attended the “right schools”. Most Harvard grads are like me, total unknowns with ordinary jobs. And nowadays most Harvard grads have backgrounds no different from yours. My parents were teachers and first generation college graduates. Most of the folks I knew in college did not come from a long lineage of Harvard grads. In fact the social structure there was such that I was unlikely to even meet those folks. They had their own clique.
I think you’d have to look at the bio’s of the folks at the “This Week” roundtable before you assumed how out of touch they are.
Rutherford, with all due respect and you’re obviously not a stupid man, but Harvard has become in large part a choice of the politically correct and well connected, the “diversity route”, and the always predictable “endowment fund.”
If you’re a medical student, it is one thing to attend Harvard. If you’re a political science major on his way to law school, it is quite another.
There is one guy I know personally my age who went to Harvard. He was neither the brightest guy in our class (not even close), nor the most talented.
However, his family does run (and now him) a Fortune 500 company, with the entire clan worth millions and millions of dollars.
I’m sure that had no bearing on his entrance to Harvard. 😉
Is there is anything that Obama feels can’t be accomplished by another set of laws, regulations, bureaucracy, or platitudes?
Is there anything in the man’s book capable of being accomplished outside the scope of government supervision? If Barack Obama doesn’t represent the ultimate nanny state government official, I don’t know who does.
I honestly feel anymore when forced to listen to Obama, it’s like I am being babysat by a scolding and overbearing Uncle. Like we’re all stupid toddlers, and Uncle Obama is the only thing keeping us from the freezing cold.
Please get this chump out of my life forever.
R I think you miss the point regards the elitist attitudes of “right school” “right club” etc. This is pretty ironic since you seem to have an appreciation of and dislike for the “old boy network”.
Although the media doesn’t necessarily draw only from the Ivy’s it is pretty clear they perpetuate the myth that if it comes from an Ivy grads mouth it MUST be Gospel.
It is also clear to the honest man that the networks and entertainment industry are but a clique of their own. Good example there is Chelsea Clinton. The clique deemed it right so it happened.The clique decides on agendas to support and it is omnipresent in the workplace. It is in the news,in the scripts at the sponsored events and so on.
Although the Ivy’s are attempting to be the diversity machine it goes without saying that certain lineage is a plus on an application. Do you honestly believe that with good scores,not great,good either of the Obama kids won’t get the nod if they apply???
Well of course admission to the Ivies can be obtained in ways beyond mere merit. Hell, I give a piddling amount to my school every year no matter how cash strapped I am in the hope that when my daughter’s time comes, they’ll look at my record and give her a slight preference. My kid will be what they call a “legacy” applicant, i.e. someone whose parent or sibling attended before them.
The only reason I dig at BiW is that this “right schools” thing is a very small part of the “problem”. The problem is that a message war is going on both from the left leaning MSM and venues like Fox.
But then aren’t we being a bit silly? Objective reporting on politics? What does that even mean? Politics = agenda. There cannot be objective reporting on politics.
The only reason I dig at BiW is that this “right schools” thing is a very small part of the “problem”.
Wrong. It is actually a very sizable part of the problem.
These “experts” are the go-to people whenever the media wants to get a talking head to explain to the plebs why they just aren’t seeing it correctly, and they are the ones consulted by lawmakers, and they are the ones who write texts and curiculuum for use throughout the country, all of which serves to perpetuate their “credentials”, and the myth that they really do know better than anyone else.
Seriously BiW, when I watch these talking heads, I don’t feel like a pleb being talked down to. I feel engaged and I reserve the right to disagree with them.
Perhaps your concern is that the average Joe IS a pleb who can be easily swayed by these folks and impressed by their “credentials”. Why do you think I find primetime Fox so dangerous? The same reason you find primetime MSNBC so dangerous. These folks and any agenda they might have, are only a danger to the non-critical and easily persuaded.
I don’t find them dangerous because the average Joe will be swayed by them. Their nonsense doesn’t really play in the rest of the country that they feel so superior to.
They are dangerous because the people in power listen to them, because they went to the right schools, and therefore they must know what they are talking about.
Its the same reason that this administration from the beginning has been in the tight grip of the belief that there is nothing a Haaaaaaaavvvvvaaaaaddd loyah cannot do. I’ve only been pointing this out for about 3 years now…
Naaaah that would be nothing like Bush before him. Bush’s loyah John Yoo was a Harvard and Yale man. Remember him? He’s the one who gave George the green light to torture prisoners. 😉
Yeah BIC!
The same kinds of gruesome torture our Navy Seals that killed Obama’s one claim to fame UBL undertook in their training.
The “real” kind of torture. Not something very humane like disemboweling, beheaded, impaling, and hanging and burning that Al Qaeda facilitates and Rutherford morally equates.