Posted
Friday, February 17, 2006
10:00pm
Rumsfeld
suffers from a "dangerous
deficiency"
By now
you may have read about Donald Rumsfeld
comments today about how Al Queda is
winning the PR battle and how the U.S.
needs to be more tech saavy.
"Our
enemies have skillfully adapted to
fighting wars in today's media age,
but ... our country has not adapted.
For the most part, the U.S. government
still functions as a 'five and dime'
store in an eBay world," Rumsfeld
said,"While al Qaeda and extremist
movements have utilized (new technologies)
for many years ... we in the government
have barely even begun to compete in
reaching their audiences."
Consider
his words as you read this excerpt
from an earlier story on MSNBC: The
House committee established to investigate
Katrina was “informed that neither
Secretary Chertoff nor Secretary Rumsfeld
use e-mail."
Read
that again: Rumsfeld doesn't use e-mail.
How the
hell do you get ANYTHING done today
without using e-mail? What kind of
pictures does this conjure up in your
mind. I can just see old Rummy now...
trying to figure out how to stop the
VCR's clock from blinking
"12:00"... boiling a cup
of water on the stove instead of using
a microwave... writing his appointments
in his Dayrunner instead of his Palm
or Blackberry.
"Hey
Donald... what are you doing there
with those sticks?"
"Trying
to make fire!"
"Let's put this
headline in amber and pack it into
the time capsule. Let folks know what
it was like." - Josh Marshall,
Talking Points Memo
I was talking to a
friend a few weeks ago and we were
lamenting the lack of journalists in
the world right now.
Last month, I saw
a clip from a 1973 NBC news broadcast.
John Brinkley introduced a clip of
John Erlichman from the Watergate hearings
and then they rolled the footage. It
was an unedited 4 minutes excerpt.
Imagine any evening news broadcast
doing that today. It's all about soundbites
and single sentence quotes.
Today, network news
is all about reporting. That's it.
No investigation, no confirmation of
whether anything someone is saying
has any factual basis. Instead, they
will have a clip of Bush followed by
a Democrat refuting whatever Bush says.
Why be a journalist when you can simply
show film of two guys contradicting
each other?
When Bush says his
wiretaps are legal and Al Gore says
they are illegal, that's all we get.
The networks don't even bother to send
out any legal factcheckers to actually
find out. No, that would be too much
work.
A few years ago, I
read a story where reporters complained
about having to clean up President
George W. Bush's statements.
Apparently, he stutters
and uses many "um's" and "ah's" while
talking to reporters. Well, no reporter
is going to publish a quote from the
president that is punctuated by poor
grammar and rambling. So the reporters
would edit out all of Bush's stuttering
and awkward pauses. Their thinking
was it was best simply to represent
the point of Bush's speech without
all garbage; it read better.
The problem is this:
by fixing the president's mistakes,
they are not painting an accurate picture
of this president's ability to hold
a simple conversation. Witness the
occasional viral news clip of Bush
as stumbles through a press conference
(the tribal sovereinty speech is a
classic). Or moments of the 2004 presidential
debates (the stutterin' George W. McBlinky).
And who could forget "subliminable"?
That's why I found
George Clooney's "Good Night,
and Good Luck" to be such a revelation.
I knew that Edward Murrow helped take
down joe McCarthy and his communist
witchhunt, but I didn't know how. The
fact is that Murrow simply ran about
20 minutes of various McCarthy speeches
without editing them. He buried McCarthy
with his own words. A couple of weeks
later when CBS gave McCarthy 30 minutes
to rebuke Murrow's report, he was simply
rebutting his own public statements.
The McCarthy follow-up episode only
made him look desperate and sad and
effectively helped ruin him.
Imagine a network
running 20 minutes of George W. Bush
or anyone else contradicting himself.
Think of all the false statements and
bad predictions on how the Iraq War
would go. There's no way any of these
guys would still be office when faced
with their own history.
I would just love
to see the networks return to actual
journalism where politicians were held
responsible for the crap that comes
out of their mouths.
::Permalink::
Posted
Thursday, February 1, 2006
11:40pm
Top
Ten Albums of 2005
Sorry
for the delay in posting updates, especially
this one. A lot of great music came
out this year, mostly from indie labels.
Here's my list of the top ten albums
of 2005.
10.)
The Cardigans-Super Extra Gravity (Import
only)
So much more than a one-hit wonder,
this was their strongest album to date.
9.) Josh Rouse-Nashville
He gets better with each album. He
loaded this one with his best pop songs
yet.
8.) Brendan
Benson-The Alternative to Love
Benson strikes back with his most ambitious
record yet; a bold step forward from
his last album.
7.) Ben Folds-Songs for Silverman
Folds grows his sound... and no novelty
track this time!
6.) The
Magic Numbers-The Magic Numbers
Joyful pop by two sets of siblings,
which makes it that much joyful.
5.) Martha
Wainwright-Martha Wainwright
Better than brother Rufus's last album
by a mile. All the melancholy without
the depressing ballads.
4.) Illinoise-Sufjan
Stevens
Complex, layered and smartly written.
Amazing.
3.) Plans-Death
Cab for Cutie
"They've sold out, they've sold out!" Bullshit. Brilliant love songs.
2.) Kayne
West-Late Registration
He may be an egotistical ass, but he's
got the talent to back it up. Plus
it didn't hurt his case when he bashed
Bush on live TV. Bravo.
1.) Extraordinary
Machine (Jon Brion version)-Fiona Apple
Sure, if this version didn't exist,
the release version would still be
on the list, albeit lower. The released
version has too much sheen. This one,
with the requisite Brion strings, feels
much lusher and organic.
Honorable
mentions:
Z-My Morning Jacket
The New Pornographers-Twin Cinema
Feist-Let It Die
KT Tunstall-Eye to the Telescope (Import
only)
Spoon-Fiction
The Go! Team
Great Lake Swimmers-Bodies and Minds
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah-Clap Your
Hands Say Yeah
I was hoping to have
seen most of the big 2005 movies by
now, but I didn't quite make it. If
I'm not able to catch "Capote" in
the next week, I'll post my favs regardless.
The thing that the
right-wing has done correctly is stick
together. No matter how stupid the
platform or decision, there is no derision
in that party.
Harry Reid is right
on whenever he tells Lieberman to shut
the hell up. It's like in the Godfather
when Michael Corleone tells Fredo to
never take sides outside the family.
That's why so many Dems think Lieberman
should just jump sides; he's a liability.
Does the DNC lack
a unified front? Hell yeah. Is that
enough to stop people from voting for
them? Not anymore. Bush has fucked
up the country so badly, the Dems DON'T
EVEN NEED to step up with a plan. As
long as they don't get caught with
a dead hooker or a live boy, they'll
be fine.
It's like Donald Trump
and the Apprentice. Sometimes, you
just have to sit in that boardroom
and watch your enemy talk themselves
right out of their job. Then the last
person standing wins.
The Dems will get
their shit together soon enough. As
soon as they get rid of turncoats like
Lieberman and Zell Miller, they'll
be in better shape. These returning
vets running as Dems is a step in the
right direction.
John Kerry is a good
man. He was just way too cerebral and
nuanced. It was perfectly logical for
Kerry to say he voted for the 87 billion
before he voted against it. I knew
what he meant. Problem is, when you
say something like that, you have to
explain what you mean to the dummies
and frankly, Americans don't like to
be talked at; they like to be talked
to. Or rather, down to.
The public likes candidates
who talk in soundbites and simple sentences.
Bush kept going to barbeques and trying
to come across as a regular guy. I
don't know too many "regular" guys
in the Skull & Bones who went to
Yale and played rugby... RUGBY! He
fixed that image problem by driving
around in his pick-up in Crawford and
wearing a cowboy hat.
Same thing with Clinton.
He bit his lower lip and felt our pain.
Then he walked around with the nickname "Bubba".
Americans are dumb.
One need only look at who our president
is.
::Permalink::
