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Howell Raines is the perfect representative of everything that is wrong with the SCLM. They aren't really liberal and they aren't really conservative. They are shallow, bitchy elitists. Suffice to say, any advice from this guy should be taken as a sign to do the opposite. Compared to pompous ass Howell Raines, John Kerry is Elvis Presley.
One pathology of the elite guardians of our discourse is their tendency to focus on the inane and superficial and then pretend that they're standins for Joe and Jane America. They cover politics like Joan Rivers covering fashion at the Oscars, and then pretend that they're just reflecting the opinion of "the American people." They'll attack candidates (well, Democratic candidates) for not being "serious" about issues and then wonder aloud about the fact that they're boring the people with all those Big Incomprehensible Numbers.
Most of these people are well educated and many are from elite schools. I don't know if they're posing or lazy, but I don't believe they're as illiterate and innumerate as they claim. Ted Koppel, who had no trouble counting down the days we had hostages in Iran, professed during the 2000 election that all those numbers Bush and Gore were throwing around were just soooo confusing. Koppel is one of the nation's premiere journalists and he's been hosting one of journalism's premiere TV shows for 20 years. He can't add up a few numbers? Someone on his staff can't?
A few times I've declared the "age of wonk" is over. Aside from a bit of education, there isn't really much point in really discussing many policy issues in-depth. This administration obviously isn't interested. And, nor is the 4th estate.
They talk hair cuts and sighs, pretending this is what really matters to the Amurcans they have nothing but contempt for. The truth is, policy issues don't matter to them at all. The elite media - the blow-dried pancake makeup wearing ones on the nets and the Pravdas on the Hudson and Potomac - are almost entirely insulated from the economic policies of any administration. Hair cuts and sighs matter to them, the rest of it doesn't. That would be fine if they didn't pretend that people struggling to stay out of bankruptcy gave a shit about this stuff. That people going to court to squeeze out owed child support so they could put food on their families gave a shit about the latest Heatherism of the day.
It's all ceased to matter to them. It isn't cynicism or apathy, it's just disconnect and lack of empathy. It disgusts me when these people pander to "the Heartland" or the "Red States" or to people with "good American values." Most of them only know the comfy suburban America they were reared in, having no understanding or concern for the despair which comes from economic hardship which one finds in spades both in urban and rural America.
And, the worst of these - the Howell Raines and the Margaret Carlsons - perpetuate the myth of their own "liberalism," shitting on everyone who truly can be described as liberal.
Click to listen to the end of this post.
Postcript: The new food critic for the Times? Frank Bruni - the guy who covered the Bush campaign in 2000.