Give voice to the billyclub

What's Bob Greene's gig at CNN? To give sympathetic interviews to reactionaries.

Look, being a Marxist, much less being a war protester with no revolutionary impulses, is not sufficient reason to have your skull bashed for the "crime" of free speech. Taunting comedically doesn't deserve assault. It's not even illegal to be an asshole, as some of the protesters surely were. Look, these cops getting back together is definitely not a reunion of the Waffen SS. I'm sure most of the cops had long and honorable careers. But they're not heroes for their police riot.

The cops weren't in the right in August 1968. Never mind whether one or two of them now "remember" that they opposed the Vietnam War, they brutally defended the existing pro-war Establishment order. Greene says that their defense of their riot here in 2009 was only attention-getting. Oh bullshit.

The reason there's no healing from this is that journalists like Greene continue to help with the rationalization of brutality. In forty years, someone will take this role to excuse the Constitutional crimes of the Bushist regime.

The lesson: As long as there is no accountability, there's no learning, no progress, no resolution.

Short election cycle

Huh? Short?

Well, in an ever so long week and a half, CNN's Bob Greene has gone from interviewing people (voters? I doubt it) who hadn't yet really paid attention to the Presidential election to those who are sick and tired of it like this vacuous woman:

Karen Dyer, 45: "I'm tired of it. I'd like to read about something happy instead."

Such as?

"Such as the war being over," she said. "That would be happy, wouldn't it? I'd like to read about that, not about McCain and Obama."

Nah, those things couldn't possibly be connected. Maybe a better name for Greene's beat would be "Apolitical white folks with nothing to add." Yeah, I've been reading his columns, but only to find out what new cultural banalities he can celebrate.

Pretty soon, he can pick up with missing blond white girls or how paint peels off a desolate drive-in movie screen or how middle-aged couch potatoes can lose weight but still watch eight hours a day of "reality" shows or what to do in small town honky-tonks on Saturday night (get drunk and look for nookie so you'll have something to ask forgiveness for in the morning).

I have to say this: I won't miss Greene's columns.

Blogger flushes

I had written a screed about Todd Palin's superficial answers to questions about the firing of Walt Monegan. But after reading Palin's submission (PDF), I wasn't happy with it, so I saved it for later consideration, and Blogger flushed it. Maybe Blogger did me a favor.

Make no mistake, Sarah Palin fired Monegan, despite Todd's pleading that Monegan resigned rather than be reassigned to Nome or wherever. And the appearance that the Palins used their position to settle a personal score is an important issue.

But there's another important issue that the media need to look into, and that's Mike Wooten, who does indeed sound like the worst kind of cop, one who also used his position to settle personal scores.

Todd makes a lot of serious allegations. Could the media please look into both issues at once? Or are they too busy interviewing non-voters? Specifically, is there credible evidence that Wooten made death threats, or did someone overreact to having an armed adversary.

Update: Well, it wasn't Blogger. It was me. But I'm still glad I reconsidered.

Dispatches from clueless-land

CNN missed the 2000 McCain experience so much that they commissioned Bob Greene to tour on their own leased bus. So far, the results of Greene's conversations with ordinary Americans have been, well, to call them ordinary would be an insult to ordinary people.

Mainly, Greene's interviews have been with people who don't have a clue about anything. For instance, today we hear from a woman in the age of expensive gasoline who drove five hours for a meal of "throwed rolls" (pronounced "thowed" for those of you not born, as I was, in the Cape Girardeau broadcast area). At least she cares a little about politics, unlike some previous interviewees. She wants to change completely how we elect leaders so that we can take all of them. Mitt Romney and John Edwards can compare hair products, I guess, but that's about all they have in common.

If she has a real idea, let her try to pass it. But no, she's just carping out vague dissatisfaction signifying nothing.

Happy talk for whiners

CNN responds to the deep and dangerous financial crisis with bullshit happy talk.

(See also "Trillion-dollar transfer payment".)