Update In Rielle Time

John Edwards: Ignored no more

UPDATE fr0m yesterday: A thought’s been bugging me all night. Is this the SAME press that refused to cover John Edwards in the early primaries of 2008?

(From this blog, January 31, 2008, just so’s you don’t think I’m making this up in 20/20 hindsight):

For the sake of argument, let’s assume that the utter absence of John Edwards from the media during the month of January was due to the “sideshow” issues of First Black, First Woman, First Hispanic, Insurgent Libertarian candidates. Perhaps, to be naively charitable, there wasn’t much that John Edwards could do that was “newsworthy” to the extent of capturing that day’s news cycle.

As the Bushies have shown, you can run an entire failed presidency by grabbing the spotlight each and every news cycle, so I guess that a new prerequisite of the Presidency is now the ability to hog the airwaves and the soundbites. Or, at least our piranha/paparazzi media show it that way, and, television being reality, it becomes more reality television.

The American Presidency as the O.J. Trial, if you will.

Let us set aside any suspicions that Edwards’ message about the robber barons OFFENDED the robber barons, and, fearful that he might be heard, expunged him from the record.

Because I come not to praise the candidacy of John Edwards, but to bury it.

And the media are all honorable persons.

Is this the same press that literally ignored John Edwards out of the race altogether? I realize that the post-facto rationalization that this “scandal” would have forced him out of the race in any case will be pulled out of the chestnut bin. But stop and think about it: when you’re a legitimate presidential candidate, the “freak show” aspect of covering the black guy and the chick (the unspoken insult as evidenced by the NATURE of the coverage, wherein the sexual plumbing and skin color were more important — in story after story — than the substantive and vital nature of the issues portion of the campaign), that unprofessional “freak show” reporting literally ignores  you out of the race. (And quietly disparages and belittles “the chick and the black guy” at the same time.)

Actually, come to think of it, this IS EXACTLY that same press. Self-absorbed, effete, ADD, “wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am” types who will say, without a hint of conscience: “Hey lady, I’m just here to report the news. I can’t put down my microphone to help you pull that beam off your dying child.”

A presidential campaign is SOOOOOO boring, you know.

But when a sleazy supermarket tabloid hires stalkers and pays informants to prove an affair, THAT is news to be endlessly flogged, along with the salacious, prurient sleaze that is so pooh-poohed by the chattering class? Oh, and that the Pulitzer Prize honchos decide that this is an “important” story, worthy of consideration for an investigative prize in “journalism” and this is all soberly and somberly considered as “legitimate” in any wise by the “professional” press? And that this sleaze SELLS?

This is a far more depraved and sexually diseased (in the sense of “mental illness”) society than I had thought. It is a sad irony that as commercial pornography has become de facto legitimate and accepted, that the preachers of “morality” have become depraved and salacious.

So: this is the SAME press that refused to cover the Edwards candidacy, but can’t get enough of sliming the private citizen.

How truly, tragically pathetic. It is akin to those fundamentalist Luddites who reject science and technology over the internet, networked computers, radio, fax machines, television and telephone lines, many of which are linked via satellite transmissions.

Who fly on Lear jets in $1000 suits to speak at megachurches about the illegitimacy of science. Or, who scream about the incredible importance of “professional journalism” even as they print sleaze that wouldn’t have passed muster in the sleazy supermarket tabloids of  twenty years ago?

Enquirer issue from 1995, masthead slug reads:
“LARGEST CIRCULATION OF ANY PAPER IN AMERICA”

You know, like the National Enquirer?

Courage.