Consider for the moment that a good chunk of the journalists who have done so much to destroy the reputation of their profession and craft (I honestly, literally, consider prostitution a more honest and respectable profession than journalism as it is has been practiced by most in recent years) thought they were doing so for the “public good”, however they understood it.
Yes, they were fudging the truth, but the emergency demanded it. The people needed to be “nudged” because otherwise as a dumb herd they were too dumb to see the danger. Then they needed to be nudged again. Then again. You know, because for some fucking reason they never stopped liking Donald Trump, who was an obvious disaster.
And what is interesting is the liars read each other. The New York Times reads the Washington Post, when the editorial boards are not actively collaborating on headlines, which presumably also happens both directly (NYT head calling Bezos and asking “how are you going to spin this?”) and indirectly (as a result, for example, of private “journalistic” forums, which we know exist.)
What I wonder is: “does the spell ever end?”
Let us say, for example, that in their youth they decided to wage journalistic war against Big Business. Well, Big Business runs one of the main newspapers running the sorts of stories they report. How does that work?
I really strongly feel like lying is a habit, one that once you get started, proves hard to stop. You lie, then you lie to cover up the lie to yourself, then lie about that, then accuse any truth tellers of lying. You build this relentless fog around you, moral hauteur, a necessary impatience, and quivering and quixotic moving about and around continually so you never come down from your continual truthy sugar high.
How and when do you say “I fucked up”? Are there any journalists who ate the shit disguised as sugar capable of fessing up? Of admitting they have handed the country over to the Very Large Corporations they said they were opposing? That war has become MORE, not less likely? That the common people are suffering, and that things are likely to get worse, and never better, except as an exception to the general rules in place?
Our President would not be competent to run a hot dog stand. He would continually forget the orders, let the hot dogs and buns burn, run out of condiments continually, and insult anyone who objected to his incompetence in any way. Perhaps he would be even more creative than “dog faced pony soldier”. I literally, truly believe this. As President, he is surrounded by and guided by and shut up and silenced by a small Army of handlers.
But what sane Democrat would prefer Sleepy Joe to, say, John Kennedy? As bad as he was–and JFK was bad in many ways–he still wanted the best for this country. Joe doesn’t and never did. He just wants to be Joe. He wants attention, fame, power, money, and probably back in the day lots of coke and hookers. I don’t think Hunter invented that predilection.
As I have said before, Biden reminds me a lot of the President discussed but I don’t think ever seen in the movie Spartan. It has been a decade or more since I saw that movie, so I am going off the feelings I remember of corruption and abandonment. Ethically, he would be quite equal to the behavior in that movie. I have no doubt of that.
But I honestly don’t think Biden makes any decisions any more. He is there to read statements, after being pumped full of doses of Feelgoodandstayawakefortenminutes.
How could any morally sane journalist justify any of this? At some point, you have to look at outcomes, at results, and actually getting something DONE other than electing people who are disasters.
One of my continuing hopes is that people who have been asleep will wake up and realize what they have done, and SPEAK OUT.
We have to assume, all of us, that success is possible, that the rule of law and the habit of common decency can be resurrected and placed back in the village square. I don’t know if this is true, but it is absolutely true that we all need to assume it is possible, and work for it daily as effectively as we can.