October 26, 2008
A FIFTH COLUMN ON THE 4TH ESTATE
An eerie example of simultaneous creation in the blogosphere has occurred. Both Ace and Dirty Harry have been so disgusted by the treatment of Joe the Plumber by the mainstream media that they have called for conservatives in general and bloggers in particular to give the media a dose of their own medicine.
The result is here. The plan is to have citizens treat the media employees like the media treats citizens. Every reporter, editor, source and talking head will be given the same background check and airing of dirty laundry that greeted Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. A chilling effect? Solid hydrogen, baby.
One nice side effect of vetting media elites 24/7 would be that no one would risk leaking information to them, since the risk of getting caught would dramatically increase. No anonymous sources, no manufactured news, like the current spate of "dissent in the McCain camp" stories. How do they know what's going on inside the McCain camp? Why "anonymous sources" of course.
Now the general rule in journalism is that the reporter and his editor are supposed to know who the source is, and typically they also look for corroboration from an independent source, but not always. Some stories are "too good to check", and if the story turns out wrong in some way, they just issue a muted and grudging correction a week later, buried in the middle of the pile of 3rd rate news.
Here's how this works: instead of Reynolds’ “Army of Davids†we’d have our own fifth column on the 4th estate. Conservative hotties like MKH and Coulter can school all the conservative babes on how to pull a Mata Hari on the dude reporters, learning all their dirty personal secrets and sources. Then we blackmail them with this knowledge, to either kill stories or reveal sources, and then we expose them regardless, just like the press does now. Live by the source, die by the source.
What about all the female reporters? Lucianne would run an insurgent training camp for fake "BFF" girlfriends, with head counselor Linda Tripp. Sweet revenge, eh Linda, baby? Just lend a sympathetic ear to the pinko infobroads over a couple of appletinis, and they’ll spill their guts on their sources and skeletons.
A taste of their own medicine, and all that.
UPDATE: A commenter at one of the sites says the Joe the Plumber got what he deserved because once he started going on talk shows, he became an advocate, not just some guy who asked a question.
I responded:
I'm looking forward to this a great deal.
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The result is here. The plan is to have citizens treat the media employees like the media treats citizens. Every reporter, editor, source and talking head will be given the same background check and airing of dirty laundry that greeted Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber. A chilling effect? Solid hydrogen, baby.
One nice side effect of vetting media elites 24/7 would be that no one would risk leaking information to them, since the risk of getting caught would dramatically increase. No anonymous sources, no manufactured news, like the current spate of "dissent in the McCain camp" stories. How do they know what's going on inside the McCain camp? Why "anonymous sources" of course.
Now the general rule in journalism is that the reporter and his editor are supposed to know who the source is, and typically they also look for corroboration from an independent source, but not always. Some stories are "too good to check", and if the story turns out wrong in some way, they just issue a muted and grudging correction a week later, buried in the middle of the pile of 3rd rate news.
Here's how this works: instead of Reynolds’ “Army of Davids†we’d have our own fifth column on the 4th estate. Conservative hotties like MKH and Coulter can school all the conservative babes on how to pull a Mata Hari on the dude reporters, learning all their dirty personal secrets and sources. Then we blackmail them with this knowledge, to either kill stories or reveal sources, and then we expose them regardless, just like the press does now. Live by the source, die by the source.
What about all the female reporters? Lucianne would run an insurgent training camp for fake "BFF" girlfriends, with head counselor Linda Tripp. Sweet revenge, eh Linda, baby? Just lend a sympathetic ear to the pinko infobroads over a couple of appletinis, and they’ll spill their guts on their sources and skeletons.
A taste of their own medicine, and all that.
UPDATE: A commenter at one of the sites says the Joe the Plumber got what he deserved because once he started going on talk shows, he became an advocate, not just some guy who asked a question.
I responded:
The story is not Joe. The story is Obama saying "spread the wealth around." This is how he intends "to resolve the global financial crisis, energy dependence, the oncoming recession, loss of competiveness in America, education, health care, social security, etc…" The MSM is avoiding the importance of that crucial glimpse into the real Obama worldview in favor of "doing the Greta" on Joe.
I agree that Joe let himself in for more scrutiny when he did the talk shows, and he seems to be handling it without whimpering about it. But McCain is not employing Joe as a surrogate; rather, he is using Obama's answer to Joe's question as a legit campaign issue, and Obama and the press are ducking it by changing the subject to Joe's particulars.
That's what everybody is mad about, I think. Obama's worldview is basically socialist, and all of the evidence we have about him supports that. He and his supporters know socialism will not sell, so they have to obfuscate their agenda in gauzy "hope" and "change" and "health care reform" and "education resources" campaign trailspeak.
So you see the point: the media ignored the real story ("spread the wealth around") and instead attacked the guy who caused the story to come to light. The difference? If Joe the Plumber had been an Obama supporter, and had asked him "Hey, Barack, how is your tax plan going to help me?" and Obama replied the same way. the media would not have attacKed the guy who asked the question to defend Obama's answer. They would have had to come up with some other smokescreen.I agree that Joe let himself in for more scrutiny when he did the talk shows, and he seems to be handling it without whimpering about it. But McCain is not employing Joe as a surrogate; rather, he is using Obama's answer to Joe's question as a legit campaign issue, and Obama and the press are ducking it by changing the subject to Joe's particulars.
That's what everybody is mad about, I think. Obama's worldview is basically socialist, and all of the evidence we have about him supports that. He and his supporters know socialism will not sell, so they have to obfuscate their agenda in gauzy "hope" and "change" and "health care reform" and "education resources" campaign trailspeak.
I'm looking forward to this a great deal.
Posted by: JBD at
08:30 PM
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