Fool Court Press

AFTER MY RECENT MICHAEL GOODWIN DIATRIBE, it felt good to see a like-minded letter in last Sunday's Daily News from M.W. Fischer of East Brunswick, N.J., under the heading Going negative:

Another day, another anti-Obama column by Michael Goodwin. I thought the Daily News Op-Ed pages got enough ignorance and right-wing spin from the odious Iraq War cheerleader Charles Krauthammer. If Obama's campaign slogan was "Yes, we can," then Michael Goodwin's slogan apparently is "No, we can't."

Fischer's spot-on sentiment pretty much mirrors my own problem with the very idea of an out-of-touch elitist like Goodwin being the Daily News' most prominent op-ed contributor. I wrote my own haranguing letter directly to the columnist right after I finished my original post:

Mr. Goodwin: Funny how you're so quick to write off the Obama administration less than 1/24th into its tenure, yet if memory serves you towed the Bush line for years and years' worth of columns with nary a disparaging word to say about the Bush/Cheney/DeLay agenda that got us into this mess in the first place. You repeatedly carry water for the rich man's burden, at a time when the recession is destroying the very fabric of middle class life, as if a slight increase in the taxation of the very well off represents a threat to the fabric of our capitalist system itself. How would you explain the discrepancy between the increasingly critical tone of your writing toward the new administration and the virtual free ride you gave the neoconservative agenda of the previous one?

In an older, more unabashedly chivalrous time, perhaps I would have challenged a scoundrel like Goodwin to a duel, but as it was the new president's honor, not mine, being offended, I quickly withdrew the notion. Instead, I will continue to monitor this malignant stain on the body politic. For the record, Goodwin's column of March 25, President Obama Failed to Sell His Budget Plan to American People, played to form, amounting to little more than a thumbs-down review of Obama's Tuesday night press conference ("His silver tongue seemed tied in knots...").

Goodwin's 3/29 Sunday column focused on AIG spending billions in taxpayer bailout money to settle accounts with its bankers, claiming "Washington's outrage over the millions paid for bonuses counts as a trivial pursuit" compared to where the rest of the money went. It's a legitimate claim here by Goodwin, but by column's end he can't resist returning to his latest relentless meme: "And as the bonus flap proved, the White House and Congress are not competent to make day-to-day or strategic company decisions. Washington can't even manage its own books." But enough Michael Goodwin already...

...My brother caught this next one and pointed it out to me. On the Village Voice's Tracking Shots page, which features 5 or 6 short movie reviews every issue, there occurred a most unusual coincidence/confluence in the March 25-31 issue. In reviews for the films American Swing and Guest of Cindy Sherman, two separate critics used almost the exact same phrase -- "genial, schlubby" and "genially schlubby". Apparently the two colleagues -- Melissa Anderson and Ella Taylor -- share a very thin thesaurus, or else these critics think in uncannily, almost eerily similar terms. What other conclusion can one draw when Anderson writes, "Levenson, a genial, schlubby horndog from Long Island..." and Taylor, in the very next review, writes of "A reclusive avant-garde artiste paired with the genially schlubby co-host of a public access television show..." ? Either the Voice employs the world's worst copy editor or, more likely, none at all in this age of downsizing...

...How long do you think the Daily News sports editor was saving this one for? Figuring he may never get a better chance, on Sunday we got the following headline above a story on the Rangers' 4-3 loss to Pittsburgh the night before:

Refs & Sid vicious
Calls help Crosby, Pens sink Rangers

Now that's killer...

...My favorite craigslist job ad of the young year is the one I came across for Fictional Writer Wanted. Part of me wanted to reply: "Hey, I'm your man. Or woman. Heck, as long as I'm fictional, I'll be whatever gender or age or height you need me to be. Now let's talk money. Since we're being fictional here, how about $50 an hour. Good, then it's settled. Have your imaginary people call my make-believe representatives." I bookmarked the ad, but now it just says "This posting has expired." Craig should've kept that one up a while longer...

...Someone needs to explain to me why on god's once-green earth The New York Times sees fit to waste everyone's time with a front-page profile of Glenn Beck, the right-wing nutjob who hosts a cable talk show on Fox? I knew about Beck for years, but the last time I caught his sorry act was almost exactly a year ago, where my Cancun hotel room had just 3 channels in English, one being CNN, and I watched Beck and wanted to throw up all over the TV, then I remembered that sort of thing is frowned upon in Mexican culture. But an hour-long show with Beck and guests like pathetic Ben Stein spouting patriotic platitudes should have come with a stern parental guidance warning from the FCC and the Mental Health Association.
Instead of dismantling this clown's disturbing brand of American chauvinism, the Times 3/29 portrait through the looking glass instead is not only almost critique-free, but writers Brian Stelter and Bill Carter indeed come offering something very close to unadulterated praise of the latest conservative media icon. For a less curiouser, more fact-based approach to covering an anti-progressive nemesis like Beck, the website Media Matters helpfully has a page with video links to this cretin's latest rants, where you can see for yourself the scope of the man's lunacy; last night Beck suggested that "the government is a heroin pusher using smiley-faced fascism to grow the nanny state." This from a man who saw nothing wrong with being invited to the Bush White House on numerous occasions to receive the latest talking points direct from the Horse's Mouth and the Horse's Mouthpiece (Rove and Bush, respectively). Beck, in all fairness, is best represented by another part of exterior equine anatomy.

The Beck feature was itself all too reminiscent of the infamous puff piece of the unctuous Rush Limbaugh that ran in the Times' Sunday magazine last year. The only thing worth noting in this latest sordid affair is the intensity and volume of feedback on the Beck story (lamely titled Fox News's Mad, Apocalyptic, Tearful Rising Star).

Among the 362 comments following the Times' singularly crapluster take on Beck is a passionate response from dkatie of portland, oregon:

"I can't believe that the NYTimes actually gave this man front page coverage. I can't believe it! YOU guys wrote about him as if he is a real newscaster, as if he has the pulse of the USA? I can't believe this! The man is an idiot who appeals to small but loyal part of the USA public, and not a very bright one at that. This man is a nutcase! Millions of Americans watch Montell Williams and the dramatic on-tele court drams and the rest of us do not take them seriously either -- Millions of people buy the National Inquirer and believe that Elvis is still alive and that doesn't make it NEWS. Gads, NYTimes, what is wrong with you people? The man is a dangerous sick individual -- Rush Limbaugh is not as bad as this guy. I can't believe you covered him in this manner. You all have lost your minds and good judgement."

...I guess that's just the kind of world we live in, a world where a Glenn Beck has 2.3 million nightly listeners. Now, my guess is that his audience is the same 2.3 million that first listens to Rush Limbaugh in the morning, then Sean Hannity and Michael Savage in the afternoon, then tunes into Beck and finally Bill O'Reilly in the evening, before falling asleep at around 10:00 smugly satiated with their daily fix of righteous anger...

...It's the kind of world where you hear sports radio host Max Kellerman has been fired from ESPN Radio, and you say to yourself: Finally, someone has seen through this obnoxious drone! Only to read a few weeks later in Bob Raissman's Daily News column that Kellerman will be joining WFAN as Mike Francesa's partner in the afternoon. Just the idea of such a self-centered loudmouth landing on his feet is a small blow to the very idea of How Things Should Work. Like a Glenn Beck being canned from CNN and then winding up on Fox News and getting good ratings. That's the kind of world we're gonna pass on to the kids...

...On the positive side of the street, Maureen Dowd has written one good column after another for a long stretch now. Moving away from Hillary Clinton as a subject has freed her from overdoing the oversimplified gender politics which she delighted reveling in during the long and bitter Clinton-Obama campaign. Sometimes she reverts to bad form, as in a recent overwrought Michelle Obama piece, but Dowd's twice-weekly column is once again a safe place to turn for an incisive if sometimes catty take on the culture of national politics...

...Independent journalism took another hit last week with the announcement that Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. purchased The Brooklyn Paper, an award-winning local paper. First Murdoch bought their competitors a short time ago, adding to a collection that includes small papers in Queens and the Bronx. The Times article raises the issue of how coverage of the controversial Atlantic Yards real estate development would be affected. Given the precedent of News Corp.'s takeover of The Wall Street Journal, I wouldn't be inclined to give Rupert Murdoch the benefit of even one column inch of doubt.