February 20, 2006, Perspective is everything...
Let's continue our beating a dead quail to death in... Fudd-fest...
We'll move on to comparing accounts of how everyone's favorite right-wing-operative-married-to-a-left-wing-operative, i.e. Mary Matalin, has presented herself about the whole Fudd-gate fiasco (thanks to Bruce the Veep for the term.)
We'll start with Mary's allies at Right Voices, who believe Mary kicked ass in her dealings with Tim Russert and Maureen Dowd on the Sunday talk show that digby calls "Press the Meat." Notably, Mary quickly scored points by attacking human "left wing clay pigeon" Maureen Dowd, invoking among other things, Hillary Clinton and the Vince Foster fiasco. I'll say this: Press the Meat is not exactly designed to be a fair fight where the truth (unless it coincidentally comports with the latest right wing talking point) is likely to emerge. Notice that the carefully selected little snippet failed to address the issue: the vice-president of the United States evaded possible criminal charges for shooting while drinking (no such charge exists of course; the actual charge would be reckless endangerment)
by belaying his date with the local constabulary... in other words, behaving in his personal life in exactly the same way he does in his public life-- as if he is above the law. Maureen's tepid attempt to tie the two was... unsurprisingly pathetic (of course).
Speaking of digby, he gives us a different perception on Ms. Matalin's performance in this aptly titled post "The Beltway's Madwoman of Chaillot". Yes, its mostly about Paul Gigot, but it ties in beautifully with what I was saying above: having made private conduct in office to be the relevant standard (say what you will about Bill Clinton's "private affairs"... they were not his "public affairs")... well, Dick Cheney has opened himself up, eh? Rhetorical question warning: of course he has!!! It'th Dick theathon, boyth and girlth! Heh heh heh heh! Digby's point, well-taken as always, is that Mary f***'ed this one up big time. The questions that are out there... including my own... could have easily been handled through better public relations. Hell, make up some story about Dick's own medical condition that prevented him from speaking to the police... something... instead of just "blame the victim". But we digress...
Anyway, on the broader subject at hand, which is "media madness," Julia reminds us of our old friend Mr. Daniel Okrent, former "public editor" (or ombudsman, hired after the Jayson Blair fiasco) of the New York Times. He's back... speaking in public that is- he's attached to Harvard, rather than the Times. Anyway, he would have us believe, of course, that there was no pressure at all on any reporter or other employee of the Times vis a vis their war coverage (or what burns my ass to this day, their non-coverage of the biggest anti-war protest in the streets of New York in decades in February 2003, a protest I was at) in order for the paper to get to sit at the tough guys' table. As if Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger would stand for that!!!
Okrent laments the loss of newspaper credibility and prestige-- a void that may be filled by bloggers. Indeed, he laments that the American press's falling down on the job in the run up to the Iraq war that constituted a loss of prestige that helped grease the skids for that war, and was a huge loss of prestige, that may ultimately lead to the fall of newspapers and rise of blogs, etc.
A loss that he helped legitimate with his very job and his performance therein...
Go figure...
Update: Julia writes in to clarify a point I seem to have muddied: back when Dan-O was bookin' as the Times' public editor he insisted that there was no pressure from the editorial Central Committee on how reporters should cover things "Iraq war" related. Now, of course, safely removed from the Grey Lady's payroll, he tells us that yes, indeed, the Times' reporters were under great pressure in how they worked, as the Central Committee was, in fact, playing dress-up and orchestrating coverage...
Which ties in even better to the Madwoman Matalin point raised above: in her Press the Meat appearance, Mary harped on and on about how Vice-President Fudd did not blame the victim... how, while "in person" he apologized to Harry and didn't make a public contrition (and say a hail Mary Matalin!) for four days did not result in the public "blame the victim" game when, of course, that's precisely what it did.
You see, the Bush Administration, as Michael Berube recently reminded me, as reported by Fafblog, is capable of bending time and space (I believe to protect us from terrorists), and therefore, events must have occurred exactly the way Mary Matalin said they did. And we can count on CNN and the New York Times to report it that way in any event.
Comments
Mark this day in your datebooks, all you TD fans. This day marks the end of the concept of Freedom of Expression as a predominant Western concept. As with 9/11, we have another excuse for the Powers That Be to keep in power and to crush any opposition. The test case here is the conviction, together with 3-year jail sentence, of some moronic Holocaust denier in Austria. Sure, you must think, this hateful person should get worse. But to allow a government to impose a criminal conviction based upon thought, without action, is contrary to modern jurisprudence. Look for the W camp to get in on the fun. They might even float a President/Vioe President Anti-Disparagement Law (because only terrorists would badmouth either, and because it might help Cheney now). Maybe it's time to rethink the entire Bill of Rights.
Posted by Hassan Bar Sinister at February 20, 2006 4:50 PM