The shitty political press.
John Kerry may be old news -- but Eric Boehlert does due dilligence in limning the hatchet job the press corps made of Kerry's not-running announcement speech on the Senate Floor. Lazy journos can get away with this nonsense to the grounds that most Dems are just happy Kerry won't be in the 2008 race and won't call them on the fact that they turned his sentiment about U.S. soldiers in harm's way into sentiment over his own frustrated ambitions. It's not only unfair to Kerry personally, it's yet another way of undermining the liberal view of public life as a noble calling. To the press corps, Kerry can't be genuinely upset about soldiers, but about his own failure to represent them. Politicians are slick and self-interested, always. At least the conservative agenda is more honest about it. Etc. etc. etc.
On the subject of the perfidity (classism, sexism etc.) of the pundit class, The Daily Howler has also been on a tear this week.
On the subject of the perfidity (classism, sexism etc.) of the pundit class, The Daily Howler has also been on a tear this week.
2 Comments:
In general, I can understand people's cynicism about politics, and I certainly have a cynical attitude about certain politicians myself. Having said that, I wish people (particularly journalists, but this isn't limited to them) wouldn't always assume the basest motives on the part of everyone in public life. E. J. Dionne said it best (as he so often does) when he said that "(a) nation that abhors politics will not long endure as a democracy."
One more thing: Joe Lieberman wrote a good book about this that is worth reading, no matter what else you think about him.
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