Rantburg

Today's Front Page   View All of Thu 04/25/2024 View Wed 04/24/2024 View Tue 04/23/2024 View Mon 04/22/2024 View Sun 04/21/2024 View Sat 04/20/2024 View Fri 04/19/2024
2012-09-17 -Election 2012
How Republics Fall
The Fourth Estate's degrading hero worship trivializes an election.

The weird ecstasy of the media-political complex at the convention in Charlotte last month was the first sign that its attachment to President Obama, always fawning, had become morbid.

In spite of the anemic economy and a real unemployment rate above 11 percent, the high priests of pontificating liberalism were giddy with euphoria. The Democrats "put on a nearly flawless convention," Paul Begala opined, and it was soon all but incontrovertibly established that, come November, the president -- beautiful, magical, and lovable as he was -- would vanquish his boring opponent.

The media savants sympathized with the delirium of Charlotte because they worship at the same altar and feed at the same trough. Two and a half centuries ago Edmund Burke said the reporters' gallery in Parliament was an estate "more important far than" the other three put together. Today America's Fourth Estate is not merely predisposed, as it has been for generations, to favor a particular political party: It is deeply engaged in the hero worship of a particular political leader.

The closeness of mainstream journalists to President Obama has debauched their integrity. Some of them give the White House veto authority over their stories. Others look to be rewarded with plum jobs or stimulus-funded ads. This abasement before power presages a return to a time when political writers, among them Swift and Defoe, were the professed protégés of statesmen and relied on Whig or Tory patronage for their bread; it also leaves the country vulnerable to the distortions of ostensibly neutral journalists who are too fervently committed to the leader to tell the truth about him.
Alot more at the link
Posted by Au Auric 2012-09-17 13:48|| || Front Page|| [9 views ]  Top

#1 When half of the nation is taking from the other half and taught that not only is that their right, but it is good.... things won't last long before the half being taken from walk away.
Posted by DarthVader 2012-09-17 17:21||   2012-09-17 17:21|| Front Page Top

#2 That fact that ANYONE would vote for this feckless imposter is quite disturbing to me.
Posted by Besoeker 2012-09-17 19:18||   2012-09-17 19:18|| Front Page Top

#3 Besoeker, yes, I believe he has that old time ability to con people. People are taken all the time. He is the best living example that I can point to. They even made movies of this activity.
That Baker fellow could do the same. Poor dying people in bed would send him what they could. I saw that happen. One old man dying in bed with the air conditioner blowing on him, a fan on high blowing on him and his granddaughter fanning him. He was on oxygen. The family was ten feet away huddled around the TV in rapture sending what money they could. That is Obama. He will keep coming back to the well. Its the only thing he knows how to do well.
Posted by Dale 2012-09-17 19:58||   2012-09-17 19:58|| Front Page Top

#4 America's Epitaph will be something like -

Here, hold my beer while I do this.
Posted by Procopius2k 2012-09-17 21:43||   2012-09-17 21:43|| Front Page Top

17:05 DarthVader
17:02 Procopius2k
16:25 borgboy
16:20 alanc
16:17 alanc
15:12 Skidmark
15:10 Skidmark
15:08 Tom
15:02 Angealing+B.+Hayes4677
14:23 Unung the Furry2677
14:11 Unung the Furry2677
14:06 Unung the Furry2677
13:29 DarthVader
13:21 Airandee
13:19 Airandee
13:15 swksvolFF
13:06 swksvolFF
13:04 NoMoreBS
12:58 Remoteman
12:52 NoMoreBS
12:49 Frank G
12:35 mossomo
12:35 Cesare
12:30 swksvolFF









Paypal:
Google
Search WWW Search rantburg.com