Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

Brian Tiemann
Silicon Valley-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry and political bile.

btman at grotto11 dot com

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Saturday, July 17, 2004

16:05 - The New York Enquirer
http://vodkapundit.com/archives/006139.php

(top)

Here's something that happened while I was up at my folks' place this week on vacation.

Now, I don't normally make a habit of watching the evening mainstream media news. I'd gotten out of that practice at college, since we didn't have TV there; and afterwards, I had the Web (and, later, blogs) to satisfy my appetite for news. These days I don't even listen to KCBS on the radio anymore. But, you know, hey�if I have the opportunity to refresh my memory as to why I no longer find this to be an important source from which to get my news, I'll often take it.

So the evening news comes on�I'm not sure which one; I think it was CBS News, the big national six-o-clockstravaganza. And what's their absolute top story, the thing with which they lead off the hour of news, the piece of reporting with gravest national import?

Why, this:

In the annals of Washington conspiracy theories, the latest one, about Vice President Dick Cheney's future on the Republican ticket, is as ingenious as it is far-fetched. But that has not stopped it from racing through Republican and Democratic circles like the latest low-carb diet.

The newest theory - advanced privately by prominent Democrats, including members of Congress - holds that Mr. Cheney recently dismissed his personal doctor so that he could see a new one, who will conveniently tell him in August that his heart problems make him unfit to run with Mr. Bush.

Mind you, this rumor was not the story, per se: the story was that the New York Times had printed this. "Quiet rumors that Dick Cheney might be dropped from the ticket became a lot louder this morning," said the anchorwoman, "When the New York Times this morning published this story." They showed a photo of the article in situ on the newspaper. This was the story! That this rumor, advanced by nobody more in-the-know than "prominent Democrats", had been printed by the NYT. And, you know, if CBS's goal was to expose the NYT as a source of garbled lies, it would have made a pretty strong case. But somehow I doubt that's what their intention was.

The news desk then turned to CBS' primary Washington correspondent, that fat guy who looks like Wayne Knight, who said that he'd spoken directly to "no fewer than five top Bush administration officials, from Karl Rove on down," all of whom had assured him in no uncertain terms that the rumor was unfounded�that Cheney was on the ticket, that the party considers him an asset, that there's no reason to expect any changes. So the newsdesk appears to have made the best effort possible, and found that there's no basis in truth for publishing this rumor as-is. Sounds like good reporting so far, right? That silly Times!

...But what does CBS do next?

Why, yes�you guessed it! They called up John Kerry and got a sound bite:

"The Bush administration may like to paint me as some kind of flip-flopper. But if Bush drops Cheney from the ticket, he will prove himself to be the flip-flopper of all time."

Wheee! Isn't this great? This is how news is made today! If you're a "prominent Democrat", apparently, you can now just make up wild stories with no basis in reality and send them in to the New York Times, who will gleefully print them above the fold! Hey�since this has worked so well this time, let's accuse Bush of murdering Jon-Benet Ramsey, and Condi Rice of being a space alien engaged to Elvis! By the end of the day, you'll have John Kerry on the phone with Dan Rather and fifty million viewers, telling us all in concerned tones how much he disapproves of the murder of child beauty queens and the Republicans' tacit policy of employing illegal aliens in top official positions, not to mention his belief that he, like most Americans, frowns on interspecies marriage between extraterrestrials and dead musicians. Just watch the polls soar! Damn Republicans won't know what hit 'em. Huzzah!

Seriously, after this story finished playing itself out on Wednesday night, I just sat there staring at the TV. This is the news I spent so many years watching? It was't always this much of a farce, was it?

I mean, come on... at least wait until news actually happens before you give political candidates a platform on which to make hay out of it, huh?