REFLECTIONS OF AN OBJECTIVIST MUSE
4 August 2000
Playing with: the new webcam. |
More on the Convention
Callie and I met up with John, Don, and a few other people at the Icehouse tonight (which was in fine form -- surprisingly slow for a Friday night, but with Callie's dad and the hotdog production at full speed, and a pleasant group of people) and there was quite a bit of conversation about the Republican National Convention. We all seemed to agree that it went well for the Republicans, and that they had done an outstanding job. I found some excellent commentary on the convention in Paul Gigot's and Peggy Noonan's weekly columns at OpinionJournal.com. But most telling was this excerpt illustrating a phenomenon I've written about often, the idiocy of the media. Like Noonan, I don't want to harp on a media bias, but it's there. Most journalists are liberals and are idiots, and it shows in their coverage. It's a sad state of affairs that Noonan actually has to call this person she writes about heroic simply because he did his job:
I want to think that the internet, and C-Span, and DSS technology, and technology in general have made the biased slant -- whatever the bias -- of news reporting less relevant today than ever. But I'm not so sure about that. I know it's made it easier for me, and other intelligent people who can think for themselves, to read speeches and analyze events and draw our own conclusion, but I wonder if most Americans aren't still too lazy to do that, that it isn't easier for them listen to idiots like Peter Jennings mispronounce Condoleezza Rice's first name and then really massacre the substance of what is being said. It's almost like the media is incredulous that anyone could actually believe that individuals should be empowered and government, particularly the national government, should be less intrusive, let alone that a governing majority exists of people who think this very uncomplicated thought! So we shall see. I think one major appeal of Bush is that he comes across as a fairly simple man, a man who could be your neighbor, who'd rather be at your barbecue than at a policy wonk discussion of EPA emissions testing. That persona will serve him well when the media turns on him -- as it inevitably will when it sees Gore trailing -- and he has to get his message to the people himself, a la Ronald Reagan.
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Copyright (c) 2000, Kevin L. Whited |