When one goes for a hit of news, it’s amazing how often it’s been cut with spin. Not bias, not commentary, but flapdoodle. It’s right after shipment where the purveyors can’t help but allude to it so it stays.
Example 1. Former President Clinton’s tactics a few weeks ago while campaigning for the candidacy of his wife. He made direct criticisms and rebuttals of her opponent. He in turn was criticized. Bill Clinton’s remarks still are being written about in print (print and text online) and spoken of (radio-TV and streams online). Yet Hillary Rodham Clinton fared extremely well in the Super Tuesday primaries afterward. It was almost as if the majority of voters weren’t paying attention — strike the “almost.”
Example 2. “Doesn’t it seem as if Chelsea is sort of being pimped out in some weird sort of way?” was said by MSNBC employee David Shuster on the air last week. His employer suspended him. As a broadcast journalist he asked a perfectly reasonable question, using slang. He was attacked as if Miss Clinton was 14 and called a prostitute. Back to the top of the paragraph: He was referring to the organization, not the 27-year-old woman. The Obama campaign similarly was pimping out the senator’s wife to the Larry King Show the other night. The McCain campaign never stops pimping out the veteran’s Vietnam history. If Shuster had said, “Doesn’t it seem as if Bill is being pimped out,” he’d be correct there as well, though accused of encroaching on Jon and Stephen’s comic territory.
If you do someone else’s bidding with little direct reward for yourself, then you are being pimped out, the phrasing dependent on a dark mood. I am a writer, hence an observer, and that makes me a parasite to people who actually are doing things. Ho ho ho.
While Bill Clinton was drawing negative fire, Hillary Clinton was out shaking hands and persuading millions she’d be a good president. While Chelsea was phoning party delegates and talk show hosts, Sen. Clinton was implicitly showing herself to have been a great mom: Chelsea grew up to be normal, smart but not polished, well-spoken but not working from a script.
The Daily Show and The Colbert Report call themselves fake news and fake punditry, and of course they joyfully are, but the real fake news comes from whatever hits the applause meter. Listen to these hosts, from The View to Rush Limbaugh to Jay Leno, they throw out a wide variety of topics and spend time only on those that get applause, laughs or phone calls, from people who have the free time to be there in the first place. Meanwhile, the world does seem to go on. -30-
