Wright problem, wrong analysis

It may be the Wright problem, but it’s the wrong analysis. I have become convinced of late that we should do away with so-called news analysts. When something like this Wright problem comes up we should be shown what the people themselves actually say, like Jeremiah Wright, and what Barack Obaama says about it. We should not, definitely not, allow news analysts to say anything. It’s just like that old parlor game (or whatever it was) where one person whispers something to another person, that one whispers it in turn to another, and then yet another, until at the end whatever it was that was whispered in the first place has become totally unintelligible or downright ridiculous. Our news people have made an art form out of obfuscation and distortion. Pat Buchanan is perhaps one of the best examples. When Obama first said he had not heard some of the things Wright had said in his sermons nothing much was said about it. Then eventually Buchanan said he didn’t see how that could be. Then later it was how it could possibly be. Now today that has morphed into something like, “how could a man with an intimate relationship with Wright for twenty years not have heard those things?” Notice the “intimate” relationship and the “twenty years.” The Reverend Wright married the Obamas. He baptized their children. He served as the Pastor of the church they attended (how consistently I do not know). But intimate? How intimate are you with the person who married you? How intimate with whoever baptized your children? How intimate with your Pastor? Buchanan can’t possibly know whether Obama’s relationship with Wright was “intimate” or not, and he certainly can’t know how intimate it might have been. These guys make a living doing this stuff. Chris Matthews is another case in point. He can take the simplest thing and convert it into an entire conspiracy. There wouldn’t be any Wright problem if it weren’t for the demands of the 24/7 news programs. They never have enough news so they constantly manufacture it. We watch car chases in L.A. for hours, we hear for days about the latest Britney Spears problem, sometimes they even manage to drag a story on for weeks on end. They do the same thing with whatever happens to come their way (hence the saying, “a slow news day”). I want to know what the principals said about something, I don’t want to know what Chris Matthews or Pat Buchanan says about it. Whatever the latter two say about something you can be certain that it isn’t what was actually said or involved. A wise old man once told me when I asked for advice about becoming a kind of low-level administrator: “people will come to you with a problem, but what they tell you won’t really be the problem.” How true. Wright is not the problem, the news people are the problem. Some of them are more hopeless than others but even the best are pretty hopeless. It’s their job to fill 24 hours with something and, unfortunately, anything can be called “news.” Have you ever heard any of them say, “there’s no news today.” Of course not. News is what they say, it doesn’t matter what it is, and curiously, it doesn’t seem to matter how many times you have heard it, it’s still somehow considered news. News has become just that noise you hear between commercials. Actually, I once heard a newsperson say “well, there’s no news today.” This was on the Big Island of Hawaii where I lived for a time. The morning news on a local station usually took the form of “Mrs. Ho’s son David, ran over Aunty Sallies chicken.” One morning the announcer literally said, “There’s no news today.” How refreshing!

It appears that the Reverend Wright’s performance at the National Press Club was arranged by a Clinton supporter (with the blessings of the Clintons?).

Justice Scalia says that torture may be cruel and unusual but it is not punishment. How I admire legal minds. Why is it that whenever I see Scalia I feel like I should go and take a shower?

Nancy Pelosi likes George W. Bush. I just can’t get over that. I wouldn’t think any decent person would admit to such a thing.

LKBIQ:
“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.”
Sir Winston Churchill