Getting a snapshot of the 2013 Zeitgeist
Living a week under the condition red alert was a flashback to the good old days when lefty pundits could criticize George W. Bush for his policies rather than having to exert some effort to defend President Obama for doing what Dubya did while he was in the White House. At least the week long condition red alert took the focus off the NSA's (alleged) unnecessary monitoring of various means of communication.
If Obama is busy doing the same thing George W. Bush did, how can the people who criticized Bush defend Obama? Likewise, how can the Republicans who defended Dubya attack Obama? Isn't there a kind of demon who suddenly becomes the exact opposite of what it was perceived to be?
Do the pundits who criticized the Bush plan to do some electronic snooping in the name of Homeland Security have any grounds for praising Obama for doing the same thing? Do the Republican propagandists have any logical way to denounce Obama for using the old Bush era "Red Alert" ruse to defuse the topic as a subject for a debate?
Journalism is (theoretically) supposed to fact check the politicians so that the citizens can make a well informed decision at the voting polls. Unfortunately, it is up to consumers of news media to do their own fact checking and now both parties seem to be willing accessories after the fact for the murder of quality journalism in the country that spawned Murrow's Boys.
Doesn't it make sense that a party of greedy capitalists, who endorsed the con man attitude of caveat emptor, would encourage journalism to morph from an obsession with truth into an endless source of doubletalk that bamboozles the rubes? We wonder what the Democrats' explanation could possibly be.
If a pundit with access to the Timer Travel Machine were to travel back to 2006 and announce that in 2013 a Democratic President would be wrestling with the tantalizing possibility of adding Syria to the list of American quagmires, such a hypothetical columnist would be hauled off and forced to endure a cooling off period of psychiatric evaluation.
On Thursday, August 08, 2013, Uncle Rushbo was kvetching about the fact that Obama's first nationally televised comments about the new Terrorists' Threat came on the Tonight Show.
Uncle Rushbo can't b*tch about Obama doing what Dubya used to do because that might prove to be inconvenient in 2016 when JEB is running as the Republican Party nominee for President, so he has to use attacks on the personal level to criticize the President. Hence he was saying the appearance on the Tonight Show diminished the Presidency.
Rush specifically mentioned that John F. Kennedy did not go on the Tonight Show, back when Jack Paar was the host, to tell the nation about his assessment of the Cuban Missile Crises. Limbaugh either chose to forget or didn't know that Fidel Castro did go on the Tonight Show, after deposing Fugencio Batista, to make overtures to Washington. Facts are just pesky details for "America's Anchorman."
Rush questioned Jay Lenno's credentials for being a Journalist rather than a stand up comic. Limbaugh said "I'm not being critical of Leno at all. And I was not at all surprised that Leno would ask better questions than the White House press corps does."
Quoting something that Chris Cillizza, wrote in the Washington Post, Limbaugh continued: "As we have written before in this space, the idea that a serious journalist can't have fun is not one that's broadly held by the people who, you know, consume our journalism. Leno's interview with Obama proves that the opposite is also true; that a 'fun' person can also be serious."
[Could the World's Laziest Journalist humbly suggest that when journalism takes a break from being oh-so-serious, it should be dubbed "Leprechaun Jorunalism"? ]
When it seemed like Limbaugh was going to address the issue of what makes a good journalist, he veered away from that interesting topic. (We could do an entire column on that topic.)
Bringing the focus of the rant back to himself Uncle Rushbo continued: " . . . I do something that you don't find elsewhere in the media. I combine the serious discussion of issues with irreverent satirical comedy, with credibility on both sides." Isn't the both sides contention often contradicted when Uncle Rushbo abruptly cuts off a liberal caller?
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