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What's been eating at me this week
Aug. 12th, 2007 01:57 amAbout a year ago, I was listening to an NPR week in review show. There were three guests discussing issues--one of them a Washington beltway political reporter, one a writer for the Wall Street Journal editorial page, and one a reporter for one of the international newspapers. The first question was, at it is every week, "What was the most important event this week?"
Because the mid-term Congressional elections were in full swing, the political reporter and the propagandist both said that the most important event was some minor gaffe by some political figure--I want to say that it was John Kerry's botched joke about how if you don't study, you "get [us] stuck in Iraq", but I'm not sure that the timing is right. Both of them agreed that this gaffe was catastrophic and would have disastrous results for the Democrats and would guarantee that the Republicans held the Congress.
The third person said, "The government of Pakistan has just signed a truce with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, giving them safe haven in the western mountains of the country."
Weirdly, the other two people and the show's host didn't suddenly say, "Oh, you're right, that's much more important than some stupid joke." No, they went back to discussing John Kerry's big foot-in-mouth moment (or whatever it was).
Jameson Foser is still right: The biggest problem facing America isn't Iraq; it isn't the continuing crisis in New Orleans; it isn't increasing terrorism, or global warming, or health care or crumbling infrastructure. The biggest problem facing America is the news media. As long as the news media are completely and fundamentally broken, there cannot be any progress on any real issue, because no real issue can get any discussion. (I realized a couple of weeks ago that one of the reasons I'm supporting Edwards over Obama and Clinton is that he seems to be the only candidate on the Left who is actually interested in attacking this problem.)
The recent back-and-forth about what we do about Al Qaeda as the system flashes red for a second summer, and what we do about Pakistan, reminded me of this.
Because the mid-term Congressional elections were in full swing, the political reporter and the propagandist both said that the most important event was some minor gaffe by some political figure--I want to say that it was John Kerry's botched joke about how if you don't study, you "get [us] stuck in Iraq", but I'm not sure that the timing is right. Both of them agreed that this gaffe was catastrophic and would have disastrous results for the Democrats and would guarantee that the Republicans held the Congress.
The third person said, "The government of Pakistan has just signed a truce with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, giving them safe haven in the western mountains of the country."
Weirdly, the other two people and the show's host didn't suddenly say, "Oh, you're right, that's much more important than some stupid joke." No, they went back to discussing John Kerry's big foot-in-mouth moment (or whatever it was).
Jameson Foser is still right: The biggest problem facing America isn't Iraq; it isn't the continuing crisis in New Orleans; it isn't increasing terrorism, or global warming, or health care or crumbling infrastructure. The biggest problem facing America is the news media. As long as the news media are completely and fundamentally broken, there cannot be any progress on any real issue, because no real issue can get any discussion. (I realized a couple of weeks ago that one of the reasons I'm supporting Edwards over Obama and Clinton is that he seems to be the only candidate on the Left who is actually interested in attacking this problem.)
The recent back-and-forth about what we do about Al Qaeda as the system flashes red for a second summer, and what we do about Pakistan, reminded me of this.
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