Thursday, August 31, 2006
he made that post his bitch
All the 'sphere is abuzz with Olbermann's smackdown of Rumsfeld tonight. Which is as it should be I suppose. Although well-deserved, the polemic was bizarrely self-conscious. If you're going to channel Murrow, you should probably avoid pointing out that you're channelling Murrow.
Maybe that's being too hard on Olbermann though. One simply cannot show up to a public meta-image fight these days without ritualistically invoking some historical analogy. Original thought and phrasing simply will not cut it. It's interesting that WWII is always invoked in these battles to see who can conjure the greater bugaboo and hero icons. Apparently those are the last events of which adult Americans have any shared memory, any consensus reality. So when doing battle with your enemies the key is to find the appropriate historical figures that correspond to the "goodguy" and "badguy" feelings, and then tie those faces to contemporary persons.
In the end Olbermann's rant, stirring as it was, still leaves you with the feeling that you've been watching shadows on the wall; that the source of the malaise persists unnoticed and unhindered.
By way of contrast, an enjoyable gem via Digby:
posted by Scats : 8/31/2006 12:58:00 AM
Maybe that's being too hard on Olbermann though. One simply cannot show up to a public meta-image fight these days without ritualistically invoking some historical analogy. Original thought and phrasing simply will not cut it. It's interesting that WWII is always invoked in these battles to see who can conjure the greater bugaboo and hero icons. Apparently those are the last events of which adult Americans have any shared memory, any consensus reality. So when doing battle with your enemies the key is to find the appropriate historical figures that correspond to the "goodguy" and "badguy" feelings, and then tie those faces to contemporary persons.
In the end Olbermann's rant, stirring as it was, still leaves you with the feeling that you've been watching shadows on the wall; that the source of the malaise persists unnoticed and unhindered.
By way of contrast, an enjoyable gem via Digby:
It's often claimed that George W. Bush has asked for no sacrifices in this time of war. On the contrary, he's asked us to sacrifice our humanity and our compassion. He's asked us to sacrifice our privacy and freedom, and our respect for our fellow citizens. He's asked us to sacrifice every irreducible ideal - and there were few enough of them, God knows - on which this country was founded, and whatever fragile steps we've taken towards implementing them under the law. He's asked us to sacrifice any religious truth that would interfere with the dreary, mechanical pursuit of redundant wealth and false security. He's asked us to sacrifice our souls and our conscience, in exchange for his snake-oil promise that we'll never have to suffer the consequences of our own inhumanity. He's asked us to sacrifice our present for his future, and our future for his present.
Bush admits that he didn't respond appropriately to this disaster, and we know that this failure - if it was a failure, and not a policy, or a whim - killed people by the hundreds, if not thousands or tens of thousands. In a "civilized" country, Bush would've resigned in disgrace by now. In an "uncivilized" country, he and his goldbricking cronies at FEMA would be hanging by the neck from lamp-posts. But only in a soulless country - one that's turned its back, essentially, on itself - could there be any possibility of letting him remain in power.
posted by Scats : 8/31/2006 12:58:00 AM
