January 13, 2004 by s.z.

Deep Thoughts, by Peggy Noonan In today's column, Peggy tells us about how the Memogate Report proves that the media is biased because it doesn't say that the media is biased. Finally, one somehow gets the impression the writers of the Report thought proof of bias would be found in memos saying, "Comrades, we move against the imperialistic Bush Regime at 0800." Which is not exactly how it works. In any case those memos were not found. When I found a skull in the woods, the first thing I did was call the police.  But then I got curious about it.  I picked it up, and started wondering who this person was, and why he had deer horns. And when the report does mention bias, it calls blogs like Little Green Footballs, Powelrine, and RatherBiased "conservative."  That must really piss off Atrios and Josh Marshall. But maybe the writers of the report thought someone else would write about the whole sticky issue of bias. Like bloggers, who the report tells us have "a conservative agenda." That will surprise Duncan "Atrios" Black and Josh Marshall, but let it go. You would think that forming an angry mob would be easy.  Trust me, it's not. Peggy's favorite commentary on the report was Howard Fineman's.  Peggy likes it because it declares the mainstream media a thing of the past -- and Howard IS the mainstream media, so it's, like, really ironic! One might say he is the platonic ideal of MSMness. If doctors ever tell you that you've "flipped out," don't believe them, and just keep on doing what you were doing, because something tells me "the Man" is behind this. Yes, the mainstream media is dead, and the reason for that is because the brave yeoman blogers stormed the castle, looted the treasury, shot the royal family, and ushered in the rule of the proletariat.  Now everyone now has a voice.  Everyone is now equal.  However, Instanpundit is more equal than you. American journalism is no longer a castle, and you are no longer the serf who cannot breach its walls. The castle doors have been forced open. Other voices have access. Bloggers for instance don't just walk in and out, they have offices in the castle walls. A good way to keep a mob of peasants from killing your monster is when they break into your castle, make them be real quiet, then open a door and there's the monster, sound asleep. And the only difference between bloggers and actual journalists is that bloggers are more interesting, in that they are real people, while journalists are just liberal agenda-seeking robots created by the NY Times to do its unholy bidding. Is there a difference between the bloggers and the MSM journalists? Yes. But it is not that they are untrained eccentrics home in their pajamas. (Half the writers for the Sunday New York Times are eccentrics home in their pajamas.) It is that they are independent and allowed to think their own thoughts. It is that they have autonomy and can assign themselves stories, and determine on their own the length and placement of stories. And it is that they are by and large as individuals more interesting than most MSM reporters. We tend to laugh at hillbillies, and I guess that's okay.  But let me tell you something about hillbillies: they're fun to laugh at.  Oh, I guess I said that.  Peggy says that some people think that bloggers are like the pamphleteers of olden times -- however, the pamphleteers wrote screeds and stuff and were entertaining, while the most successful bloggers today write about kerning and typefaces, or else they just post a link and an "indeed." The most successful bloggers aren't bringing bluster to the debate, they're bringing facts--font sizes, full quotes, etc. If your kid makes one of those little homemade guitars out of a cigar box and rubber bands, don't let him just play it once or twice and then throw it away. Make him practice on it, every day, for about three hours a day. Later, he'll thank you. While the mainstream media won't disappear overnight, it may label itself as liberal, just to compete with Fox News, which labeled itself as "fair and balanced."  And this is good, because this way people will be able to get their information from the news outlet that matches their prejudices, and they will never again have to confront stuff they don't agree with. Everyone gets labeled, tagged and defined, no one hides an agenda, the audience gets to listen, consider, weigh and allow for biases. A journalistic world where people declare where they stand is a better one. I guess we were all guilty, in a way. We all shot him, we all skinned him, and we all got a complimentary bumper sticker that said, "I helped skin Bob." On the other hand, if the networks would stop being liberal and just cover interesting stuff like disasters and the Michael Jackson trial, then maybe there could be a place for them in this brave, new world. But everyone will buy the networks when they sell what they're really good at, which is covering real news as it happens. Tsunamis, speeches, trials--events. You know what would make a good story?  Something about a clown who makes people happy, but inside he's real sad.  Also, he has severe diarrhea. 4:39:21 AM

Screw the Poor And Needy! From US News and World Report: In pushing vigorously for a federal marriage amendment and in claiming some credit for the GOP's successes in November, Dobson and some other evangelical leaders have drawn fire from within their own ranks for appearing too strident or extreme. "Not everyone feels western civilization is going to rise and fall on a marriage amendment," says Richard Cizik, a lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, which claims 30 million members. "My fear is we're bringing on criticism that we're modern-day ayatollahs." Dobson, for his part, won't budge. "The poor and needy are important," he says. "But . . . with the killing of 43 million babies, it's not in the same league--we're talking the unborn holocaust." The only other issue on par, for Dobson, is banning same-sex marriage. "You have to decide the things that matter most," he says. ". . . If that makes us sound extreme, I'll take it." You will all recall Jesus' parable of the crime victim who was stripped and left for dead in the road, and how the priest and the Levite saw him and walked on the other side of the street because they were in a hurry to get to their meeting about banning same-sex marriage ... 2:48:05 AM