or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
September 11, 2004
Dan Rather, My... Hero. Urgh.
Like anyone else, I have no idea whether the memos in the recent 60 Minutes II story about George Bush are real. If fact, I know less than many people, because I couldn't possibly care less and can't be bothered to learn anything about it. Given the forgery line is being pushed by the usual flock of shrieking cretins, I assume the memos are real. But who knows?
What I do think is important/terrifying/funny is it shows how powerful the right wing attack machine has become. It's worth remembering something Dan Rather said in a BBC interview in June, 2002:
It's an obscene comparison but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tyres around people's necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be neck-laced here, you will have a flaming tyre of lack of patriotism put around your neck. It's that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore-in on the tough questions so often. Again, I'm humbled to say I do not except myself from this criticism.
On the one hand, Rather is certainly right that this is an obscene comparison. He's not running the risk of dying of first degree burns; the only risk he ever runs is losing his $7 million salary. Boo fucking hoo. It's obscene in the other direction too, because the people making the threats here are billionaires, not living in townships under apartheid.
BUT -- on the other hand, it's critical everyone understands that the fear Rather mentioned is very real and usually justified, particularly for journalists less powerful than Rather; ie, all of them. Every day the media is filled with thousands of errors, some of them teeny-tiny and some the size of Gibraltar. However, the consequences of these errors depend completely on whether the story being told conforms to right wing ideology. If it does, you can be Judith Miller and screw up to your heart's content. If you'd like to help spread lies, start a war and kill thousands that's perfectly fine. But if you tell the wrong story and make any error whatsoever, you will be crushed. In fact, you'll probably be crushed even if everything is completely true.
la la la happy website happy
Posted at September 11, 2004 09:13 AM | TrackBack
