World's Laziest Journalist

November 14, 2005

By Bob Patterson

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After last week's election results were splattered all over the Mainstream Media (MSM) folks like Rush Limbaugh were noting that Bush's name didn't appear on any ballot and the crowing Democrats should not get overconfident just yet.  Other pundits had different interpretations of the results.

Jokes comparing Scott McClellan to Baghdad Bob are beginning to proliferate.

Perhaps, now, President Bush will start his next attempt to rally support for the invasion of Iraq by saying: "What we have here is a failure to communicate."

Last week, concern about the black site prisons, where some intense questioning of various prisoners was alleged to occur, was also being expressed.   Wasn't there a detention facility like Gitmo on Diego Garcia?  Did the tsunami drown out all concerns about the potential existence of stealth prisoners there? 

On the day after the off year elections Rush Limbaugh was ridiculing the CBS report on the documents that questioned President Bush's service in the Air National Guard.  Be careful, Rush, with Karl Rove's propensity for dirty tricks, someone might do some digging and find out that (perhaps) the forgeries were made working from valid originals and purposely leaked with the intent of quickly (like the morning after they were featured on TV) being exposed as forgeries.  It might (just might mind you) be that the counterfeits were purposely bungled so as to draw attention to their authenticity and away from the underlying story. 

Would Karl Rove think up something that sneaky and disingenuous?  Past performance is the best indicator of the quality of current conduct.  What's his track record on "dirty tricks?"  Did he give seminars on how to pull off activities that are devious and deceptive or is it like the "above reproach" concept familiar to readers of the Bible?  If Rove is known for the Boy Scout's trait of being scrupulously honest, well then my theory (it's only a theory, just like evolution) would be wrong.  Is Rove willing to testify under oath that he didn't engineer such a ploy?

[In the November 11 - 17, 2005 issue of LA Weekly, on page 13, Lou Dubose wrote about the quality of previous examples of Karl Rove's sworn testimony.]

Isn't it ironic that the Jack Nicholson line about "You can't handle the truth" was delivered by a fictional character who was the commanding officer of a unit stationed at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba? 

Who was that mysterious figure who provided ships (wasn't one named the "Barbara"?) for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by disgruntled exiles?  Weren't they provided by some entity called the Zapata Petroleum and Offshore Company?  Who cares about ancient history?

Somewhere online someone posted a one-liner advising: "Why doesn't someone give Bush a blowjob so he can be impeached."

Wasn't there a Chinese emperor who was impeached?  Can't you just imagine the "Impeach the Emperor" bumper stickers on some rickshaw back then?

Jeff Gannon gets into the White House news conferences, but do they let Molly Ivins attend?  I can't remember ever hearing her ask one of the questions.

Why doesn't the New York Times replace Judith Miller with Molly Ivins?  Couldn't they get Ms. Ivins into a White House press conference?  Wouldn't she ask some probing and perceptive question? 

That might convince some skeptics that the new New York Times was serious about a serious intent to report the news, and not let the staff be paid to relay Republican talking points to the public.  Relaying Republican talking points unchallenged via "news stories" can be considered "hard hitting journalism" as much as someone who never fires a gun can be classified as a "poor shot."

Speaking of being paid to participate in a bucket brigade that delivers Republican talking points for a profit, way back when the first (an American tradition since 1990?) War with Iraq was developing the government was alleged to have paid some PR firms to promote the concept that the Gulf War was a good idea.  Where did all the money go?  Did they run ads on the radio?  They didn't pay for ads in Time and Newsweek.  The money had to go somewhere.  Take your time thinking about the answer to that question; no need for a Rush to Judgment type reaction.

Were the conservative talk shows even on the air back then?  Would pre-paid opinions for on-air pundits be like payola to play certain songs was for disk jockeys back in the Fifties?

Maybe (if they read our humble efforts presented here) someone at the Columbia School of Journalism's website for critical analysis of news-gathering can do some homework and answer those questions.  (You don't really expect the World's Laziest Journalist to tackle an assignment that requires that much work in the library, do you?  I have more important work to do, such as a top secret plan to steal strawberries from the editor and publisher of Just Above Sunset online magazine, while he's not looking.)

Why does that last paragraph remind me of the Scene in Cool Hand Luke, where Luke (Paul Newman) says: "I'm just standing in the rain; talking to myself…"?

Now, for our reader(s) in Paris (France, not Texas), the disk jockey will take us back to 1968 by playing Street Fightin' Man.  We'll charge out of here for this week.  Until the next time, have a riotous week.

Copyright (including logo) © 2005 - Robert Patterson

Email the author at worldslaziestjournalist@yahoo.com