Sunday, February 06, 2005
Amusing, but a bit painful
This clip from Fox was making the rounds not long ago; I just saw it now. A Vanity Fair editor rips Bush for spending $40 million on parties when our soldiers are dying in Iraq for lack of adequate equipment. The Fox anchor is clearly flummoxed; she thought this would be a puff enterview on party plans, but her interviewee would rather talk about something important (yay! Death to puff pieces!). When she regains her equilibrium, this Fox "journalist" rushes to defend her Fuhrer by pointing to his prayers for the troops---which, since she is about two steps behind, only adds to the effectiveness of the VF editor's argument that Bush exploits our troops' suffering for photo ops and parties, while leaving them to die on the other side of the world.
But it was painful watching Judy Bachrach's face (which, all else equal, really shouldn't be the case). I can see on it the twisting-guts feeling I get when pitted against an implacably stupid person bent on wreaking havoc, and no amount of rational argument can get through. Bachrach knows that the madness of soldiers dying for ersatz Iraqi democracy will continue, while the men who engineered it all will enjoy many more parties. She knows that the Fox empire will continue its largely effective efforts to keep Red America woefully misinformed about the state of the world. (Reality check: do you really think the good people of, say, Wyoming like the idea of big Washington parties in lieu of material aid for the troops? I can imagine they would be the first to call it an abomination, if they had all the facts at their disposal.)
Oh well. Someday, probably soon, Rupert Murdoch will die. Someone could write a far-and-balanced obit on how he helped destroy the free press and end two centuries of American democracy. And then, perhaps, the market will cast his media empire to the four winds.
But it was painful watching Judy Bachrach's face (which, all else equal, really shouldn't be the case). I can see on it the twisting-guts feeling I get when pitted against an implacably stupid person bent on wreaking havoc, and no amount of rational argument can get through. Bachrach knows that the madness of soldiers dying for ersatz Iraqi democracy will continue, while the men who engineered it all will enjoy many more parties. She knows that the Fox empire will continue its largely effective efforts to keep Red America woefully misinformed about the state of the world. (Reality check: do you really think the good people of, say, Wyoming like the idea of big Washington parties in lieu of material aid for the troops? I can imagine they would be the first to call it an abomination, if they had all the facts at their disposal.)
Oh well. Someday, probably soon, Rupert Murdoch will die. Someone could write a far-and-balanced obit on how he helped destroy the free press and end two centuries of American democracy. And then, perhaps, the market will cast his media empire to the four winds.
