Category Archives: Journalism

Robert Novak, RIP, On Things Forgotten

Education, Founding Fathers, Government, Journalism, The West

Robert Novak on taking a university course on Western Civilization, from his 2007 memoir The Prince of Darkness: “It was a golden moment for a 17-year-old boy from Joliet, leading to four years of exploration in the riches of our heritage: Plato, Aristotle, Chaucer, Castiglione, Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Milton, John Donne, Hawthorne, Melville, T.S. Eliot — dead white men all. How barren would be my life without that background?” A question no one thinks to pose vis-a-vis America’s youth and its miseducation.

Something else from Novak’s pen: “Always love your country — but never trust your government!” For some reason, the Chicago Sun-Times editorialists felt the need to excuse Novak’s professed fealty to the motto of the founders of this country.

VDARE’s Kevin Lamb provides something of a corrective: “Novak was first and foremost a Washington insider’s insider. He ranked third in most appearances on ‘Meet the Press’ and worked as a CNN commentator for 25 years. He was a master at leeching onto divisive figures inside various administrations (Karl Rove is one example) who ultimately would serve his own ends, secure his reputation and advance his own career. He was skilled at the art of dodging career-ending encounters that would put him at odds with the media elite. …”

Novak was a “plain old bigot” on matters Israel.

Updated: The Authentic Ass-troturfers

Conspiracy, Constitution, Democrats, Founding Fathers, Glenn Beck, Healthcare, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Politics

“The outcry against state takeover of medicine is in the best of traditions. Yet the malpracticing media are discounting the fractious town-hall participants as proxies for corporate and political interests. And worse.”

“The Authentic Ass-troturfers,” my new WND.COM column, details these execrable efforts by the left-liberal news filters, and their political master. Yes, “Cronkite died the other day; news coverage croaked a long time ago.”

You’ll find particularly patronizing the manner in which MSNBC “Anchors David ‘Shyster’ and Tamron Hall inferred that, rather than ‘un-American,’ the turbulent town hallers were a little simple.”

To quote from the column, What “led our sleuth in a C Cup to ‘inform’ her viewers that the mutinous multitudes were muddled beyond belief”? “Town hall attendees seemed to be harping on the proper role of government, and not on the minutia of the messiah’s medical plan.”

Lo! Making a philosophical point instead of a utilitarian one—now that is dimwitted. …”

Read the complete column, “The Authentic Ass-troturfers,” in which I make sure to further dim the debate, at least as Tamron Hall of MSNBC would see it.

You can catch the weekly fare every Saturday on Taki’s Magazine too, where the reading is really good.

Update (August 14): BECK. I like Glenn. I’ve said so often. But you come to this space for reason, not for platitudes. That’s not going to change. If you like the Beck blackboard and its “delusional diagrams of multiplying giant ACORNS,” you have to consider the merits of Maddow’s Memos, and other conspiracies lurking behind what to this here rational individual are “really unremarkable events and associations.”

You can’t gravitate to Glenn’s conspiracies while rejecting Rachel’s.

And here’s the mundane truth Glenn’s conspiracies obscure (from the post “On Conspiracy Theories”):

The premise for imputing conspiracies to garden variety government evils is this: government generally does what is good for us (NOT), so when it strays, we must look beyond the facts—for something far more sinister, as if government’s natural venality and quest for power were not enough to explain events. For example, why would one need to search for the “real reason” for an unjust, unscrupulous war, unless one believed government would never prosecute an unjust war. History belies that delusion.
Conspiracy is not congruent with a view of government as fundamentally antagonistic to the individual and to civil society, a position I hold.

Politics is dirty; there is no secret or conspiracy to it. Glenn’s nonsense, aside being tedious and taking away from the important issues of the day that he could be covering, encourages a sort of childish faith in the institute of government: “Omigod: look what they’re up to. I’m going to cry if they don’t start being nice to me.”

The Founders bequeathed a limited government because they did not believe, like Glenn appears to, that filthy politics is so unusual and conspiratorial. It’s the norm! Stray away from their vision of the corrupting properties of power, and you wander into the real of Democratic Pollyanna politics.

True, Rachel finds conspiracy in private interactions, even though these do not use coercion or access public funds. So, I guess, she is worse. Still, that’s not much of a consolation for adherents of Glenn’s latest obsession.
Incidentally, why does Glenn not sketch a diagram of the military-media-congressional-industrial complex? It’s plenty meaty. I’ll tell you why: Warfare, any warfare, so long as it involves our sainted men in uniform and their chiefs and generals, is sacred to our Glenn.

Lesson: people see conspiracy where they want to.

Updated: Clinton To The Rescue In N. Korea (Will He Pack For Iran?)

America, Foreign Policy, Gender, Hillary Clinton, Iran, Journalism, Pop-Culture

Lisa Ling of the National Geographic Channel can usually be found running around the world transmitting the propaganda du jour about “dying,” forests, “melting” icecaps, and “exploited” peoples. For some time, however, this annoying female has been preoccupied getting her sister Laura Ling released, after the woman was caught nosing around in North Korea with another “journalist,” Euna Lee.

How American! You land on foreign soil with a distinctly American approach to everything—you ignore borders, dangers, and differences. You demand in Yankee drawl, “Let’s have a show of hands for American values.” And you proceed to stomp about “exposing” the ills of the world. When some hostile primitives enforce their jurisdiction and show no appreciation for your patronizing good intentions, you cry foul. Oh please!

An extension of this mindset is the habit of stupendously naïve American parents sending their precious progeny, during their most stupid years—the teens—to dangerous spots around the world for a “growth experience.” My comments here.

(The CNN version: “Lee and Ling were arrested while reporting on the border between North Korea and China and sentenced in June to 12 years in prison on charges of entering the country illegally to conduct a smear campaign.”)

I don’t wish these silly girls ill—although Mr. J-Il obviously did—and I’m glad Bill Clinton rode to the rescue. Bill was, in all likelihood, asked to assist by Al Gore, who employs these broads in his California-based Current TV media venture.

Bill ate humble pie for the women, apologized for their idiotic indiscretions, and has brought them back home. One less topic for Larry King to stagger through on his nightly scintillating hour (He’s currently stuck on M. Jackson).

It’s not over for Bill; he had better pack his bags again. This time for Iran. A couple of American hikers wondered into … Iran, after backpacking across … Iraq. You heard right. Their greeno friends stateside say they’re just amaaazing human beings, thirsty to embrace the world. (Here’s a pic of one Californian adult blowing bubbles into the ether; she’s a “teacher-activist-writer from California currently based in the Middle East.” ) Apparently the feeling was not mutual.

Is natural selection at work?

Update (August 6): One ought to separate heartfelt sympathy for these young women from what I have done above: taken a close look at the hubristic arrogance and self-righteousness often undergirding their actions. Every bit of cynical approbation is warranted, that is if you’re not Oprah, and few on this site, thankfully, wish to emulate Oprah’s weak minded, anti-intellectual mushiness. Someone has to say the politically unpalatable: these broads are levitating in la-la land.

Updated: Cronkite Dies; News Croaked Long Ago

Celebrity, Journalism, Media, Reason

He reported the news. Nothing but the facts, ma’am. He never pulled faces to demonstrate his exquisitely politically correct sensibilities; he focused on the events, not on himself; he did not promote a brand and an annual book, he wiped a tear once in decades of reporting, and expressed an opinion with the same frequency. He became a personality by default—through the professionalism he evinced and not by cultivating a persona. His political opinions may have been unpalatable, but Walter Cronkite’s professional performance bore little resemblance to the slobbering done by the current crop of cable and TV men and women.

Anderson Cooper, grizzled “newswoman”—who crumbled when the Rev. Wright scandal broke all over his presidential candidate—and cried, “How do we make this go away?”, Don lemon, the Black-In-America disgrace of an anchor, Contessa Brewer, big-faced idiot of the childish, whiny inflection, Obama Boy Keith Olbermann, Hard-for-Obamby-Ball Chris Matthews, FoxNews cleavages for W., Barbara Walters of the “cutting edge” anti-aging reportage and colonic crusader Katie Couric—how dare they claim they are a strand of the Cronkite DNA? How dare they claim to be filling the shoes and following the example of a decent reporter?

But this is precisely what these fools have been doing since Cronkite passed away: cementing their legacy.

The procession of shameless narcissistic, self-aggrandizing and promoting hustlers—these are the news men and women of contemporary America.

Update (July 21): I’m not terribly familiar with Cronkite’s broadcasts, but from the little I’ve seen, he was professional. Those who’re condemning him for his statism and personal politics, of which I’m unaware (and you’d certainly need to know a good chunk of his oeuvre to pronounce on his opinions, as they are not manifest like David Shyster’s of MSNBC are), are in error—exhibiting some categorical confusion and feeble mindedness. For if Cronkite did journalims as one is supposed to, his politics are immaterial. Most journalists are statist. What do you want, a Mencken? But if they stick to their reportorial duties, their personal beliefs should not matter.