Althouse: "It’s obscene... It’s outrageous, OK? the Democrats are nothing now but words and fantasy and hallucination and Hollywood."

June 21, 2017

"It’s obscene... It’s outrageous, OK? the Democrats are nothing now but words and fantasy and hallucination and Hollywood."

"There’s no journalism left. What’s happened to The New York Times? What’s happened to the major networks? It’s an outrage. I’m a professor of media studies, in addition to a professor of humanities, OK? And I think it’s absolutely grotesque the way my party has destroyed journalism. Right now, it is going to take decades to recover from this atrocity that’s going on where the news media have turned themselves over to the most childish fraternity kind of buffoonish behavior."

Said Camille Paglia, talking to Sean Hannity on his radio show yesterday.

65 comments:

n.n said...: She didn't leave the Party. The Party trampled her.

Welcome to limbo. A place outside the twilight fringe, but still surreal.; 6/21/17, 6:06 PM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: That's putting it mildly.; 6/21/17, 6:09 PM
Michael K said...: She is right and it will take a decade or more to recover, if they can at all.

I have hated to see the great Brand of Sears destroyed but I have never seen a whole industry do this before.

Even ESPN which should be simple with sports as their thing.; 6/21/17, 6:11 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Camille is basically right. The Dems live for words, fantasy, hallucination and Hollywood. But they don't care too much about an iron worker, welder or coal miner.; 6/21/17, 6:14 PM
Michael The Magnificent said...: Was in a coworker's car the other day, he had MSNBC on his radio. Andrea Mitchell was taking about how there was "maybe" Russian interference, and "maybe" Russian coordination with Trump's team, and maybe this and maybe that.

And I said, maybe maybe maybe isn't news, it's speculation, and irresponsible for a reporter to be trading in maybes for who, what, where, when, and how.

My coworker didn't agree. The news media is giving the Dem base exactly what they want, given what they have, which is nothing.; 6/21/17, 6:17 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: It is obscene. It's grotesque.
The media are lazy, biased, incurious, inaccurate, and unprofessional.; 6/21/17, 6:30 PM
Earnest Prole said...: The Democratic Party has turned over day-to-day operations to the national media. The problem is that the national media isn't very good at politics. Sure, it's easy to keep 10-15 percent of the population in a state of perpetual outrage, but you turn off ordinary Democratic voters and lose Republicans entirely. It's not only bad politics, it's bad business -- or as the Brits would say, it's not only a crime, it's a blunder.; 6/21/17, 6:33 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: Rachel Maddow is a frat boy.; 6/21/17, 6:37 PM
David Begley said...: She's right but the MSM and Dems won't admit it.; 6/21/17, 6:38 PM
rcocean said...: I occasionally listen to NPR and their one-sided GA-06 pro-Democrat coverage was hilarious.

First, lots of stories about polls showing the Democrat was winning & how IMPORTANT the election was.
Second, stories of how Trump was dragging the (R) candidate down
Third, Upbeat stories of how a (D) win would change things and depress Trump's agenda & possibly herald a (D) victory in 2018.

Then came the election.

The NPR "day after" story: Who cares? The district has always been Republican. It was a miracle the (D) did as well as he did - time to move on.; 6/21/17, 6:40 PM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: rcocean - that was the D-media collective message everywhere, not just NPR.; 6/21/17, 6:48 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: My only interactions with the 'MSM' are reading the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Both are reasonable papers, the WSJ is a bit better at international news, not surprisingly given Murdoch's news empire, and the Times is better at science reporting, but there is not much in it. The WSJ had an excellent review today of a book on Iranian politics. I have no complaints. Both papers are as good or better than equivalents in other countries.; 6/21/17, 6:48 PM
I'm Full of Soup said...: The average MSM reporter / talking head/ journalist is not especially smart either.; 6/21/17, 6:49 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: I don't think of NPR as the MSM. Do they have enough listeners to count as mainstream?; 6/21/17, 6:50 PM
Bad Lieutenant said...: Earnest Prole said...

It's not only bad politics, it's bad business -- or as the Brits would say, it's not only a crime, it's a blunder.

There you go again, trying to sound all erudite and cultured and shit. The Brits? Maybe it will help if I tender the original: C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute. Commonly misattributed to Talleyrand, upon the execution of the duc d'Enghien. That would be the French, son.; 6/21/17, 7:01 PM
rhhardin said...: The professor of media studies doesn't realize it's a business, and soap opera is where it's at.; 6/21/17, 7:09 PM
Fen said...: I'm lucky I didn't know Camille in my youth. She has a beautiful mind and probably could have converted me. I would have become Ritmo, but smarter and better looking.; 6/21/17, 7:12 PM
YoungHegelian said...: “And I think it’s absolutely grotesque the way my party has destroyed journalism. Right now, it is going to take decades to recover from this atrocity that’s going on where the news media have turned themselves over to the most childish fraternity, kind of buffoonish behavior.”

PU-REECH IT, Sister Camille, PUH-REECH!; 6/21/17, 7:12 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @ARM,

I don't think of NPR as the MSM. Do they have enough listeners to count as mainstream?

Yep, they do. After Rush Limbaugh, the second most listened to radio program is Morning Edition. The third is All Things Considered.; 6/21/17, 7:14 PM
Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...: I don't think of Rush as mainstream media either but if we exclude him then apparently no radio would be mainstream, so we can't do that.; 6/21/17, 7:17 PM
Earnest Prole said...: C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute.

Distinctions not cost-effective.; 6/21/17, 7:26 PM
Sebastian said...: I agree with her, of course, and I agree with the commentaries above, of course. But I also disagree, based on my Unified Field Theory of Progressive Politics. To call the MSM buffoonish or grotesque is just an esthetic affectation. Progs will do anything to achieve ultimate and complete power. In the MSM, it follows that journalism must give way to propaganda. That can take different forms--framing the opposition as crazy and racist, tearing the country down by betraying its secrets, manipulating the prog brownshirts into mobilizing, etc. Of course, it also means that trusted progs must occupy the Commanding Heights of the media. Dems are not hallucinating: they are fighting. For the moment, they have run into some opposition. Some of their tactics may backfire. But they already control most media enterprises, most universities most swamp agencies, many courts, and quite a few boardrooms. Only where the deplorables have a voice do they get pushback, but the GOP is a weak force.; 6/21/17, 7:29 PM
Paddy O said...: What's happened to them? The great majority of major media outlets are mouthpieces for oligarchs. They thrive on the chaos and make use of provoking outrage because they don't have to bear the weight for it. So they call for bread and circuses (quite literally) to contain the masses and keep them in a regulated state of dependence, while agitating against the barbarians who would seek to undermine their control and absolute privilege.

This isn't itself new, what's new is the consolidation of newspapers and radio into a very small number of corporate control, coupled with an outdated and long-undermined belief in some concept of media objectivity, as if the corporate press represents in itself and only itself the Constitutional definition of press.

The mainstream is beaten back by the real press of the people that exists online.; 6/21/17, 7:32 PM
Gahrie said...: Well, when she's right, she's right.; 6/21/17, 7:33 PM
Bad Lieutenant said...: Distinctions not cost-effective.

How true, how true. You should give up the Earnest Prole handle and post as Unknown.; 6/21/17, 7:47 PM
khesanh0802 said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 6/21/17, 8:05 PM
khesanh0802 said...: @PaddyO A really important point that the internet has essentially emasculated the MSM. When they blow it now they can't hide their gaffe on page 13 because someone else is going to spread the news on the 'net. The Tweet "Rene Saunce" linked to is a great example of the MSM being unable to hide anything.; 6/21/17, 8:09 PM
traditionalguy said...: The Actors Guild is having auditions now for pretend Senators and Pretend Representatives for the 2018 elections. Citizenship and residency is optional. The Guild will cover for them.Money for writers cinematographers and a supporting cast thousands of with extras is no object. The Producers are multi billionaires.

PEAK Camille is fun to read and even better to listen to her stuttering passion on soundcloud.; 6/21/17, 8:34 PM
Big Mike said...: Paglia is wrong: a media consisting people who, by their own proud admission, want to change the world is what changed the Democrats by pushing them ever further left.; 6/21/17, 8:39 PM
Breezy said...: Their mirrors lie.; 6/21/17, 8:44 PM
Earnest Prole said...: trying to sound all erudite and cultured

As hard as I try, it still wouldn’t have occurred to me to convert a perfectly good English phrase to French or use tender as a verb -- speaking of which, have you managed to work the verb garner into your comments yet?; 6/21/17, 9:08 PM
Michael K said...: The WSJ had an excellent review today of a book on Iranian politics.

I was wondering where I saw that. David Goldman has had the same message about the collapse of Islam in Iran a year or two ago.

The problem is that a state that sense it is facing extinction may get reckless.

By 2050, elderly dependents will comprise nearly a third of the population of some Muslim nations, notably Iran -- converging on America's dependency ratio at mid-century. But it is one thing to face such a problem with America's per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of $40,000, and quite another to face it with Iran's per capita GDP of $7,000 -- especially given that Iran will stop exporting oil before the population crisis hits. The industrial nations face the prospective failure of their pension systems. But what will happen to countries that have no pension system, where traditional society assumes the care of the aged and infirm? In these cases it is traditional society that will break down, horribly and irretrievably so.

Desperation can be dangerous for the neighbors.; 6/21/17, 9:10 PM
Dude1394 said...: The democrat media will never recover. Once trust is lost, its lost.; 6/21/17, 9:13 PM
wildswan said...: On election night at MSNBC there was a very interesting discussion among their journalists (Rachel Maddow, Brian Williams, Chris Matthews) and guests (James Carville, Casey Hunt and one other woman) while the group waited to see what Trump intended to do next. The MSM was refusing to call the election because Hillary still thought she might win. Hillary had sent John Podesta out to say that nothing would happen that night, votes were still being counted and to send her party home. In response Trump moved from his campaign headquarters to the Hilton where his voters were still waiting for the outcome. He intended to speak to them. During the twenty minutes or so that the MSNBC crew waited to see what Trump was going to say they discussed Trump and the election. There were two positions taken. Chris Matthews, Brian Williams and James Carville tended toward the idea that jobs and the economy was the decisive issue and that Hillary did not see it which is why she lost. James Carville seemed to be saying that there were those in Hillary's campaign who tried to bring up the economy but the campaign directors were convinced that they only had to keep bringing up the issue of Trump's temperament and keep on with TV ads in order to win. Rachel Maddow and her fellow woman seemed to think that the line taken by Hillary was the right line, that Trump was KKK, racist, misogynist etc., that he won by lying and that he would plunge the country into crisis. The interesting point is that in all the special elections since Nov. 2016 the Democrats have followed the line laid out by Hillary's campaign and by Rachel Maddow. They are still ignoring the economy, still trying to show Trump is unfit, still ignoring the expressed wishes of Trump voters - and still losing elections. And still bewildered by losing.

The link is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBiPNOqYN_E and the time is the twenty minutes from 56:00 to 1:18:15.

If some important Democrats and journalists saw on election night that the economic issue caused them to lose the election then why haven't some Democrats started to run on that issue and why haven't some Dem/journalists started to discuss it?

In my opinion the Democrats can't discuss the economy because they have mismanaged the cities and states they lead. I mean, look at Chicago and Illinois and Baltimore. Moreover as union leaders they'd have to ask themselves how to manage negotiations so as not to force companies to leave for Mexico or China in order to be competitive. This they cannot do either. And they hate the American worker and are seeking the votes of the college-educated from anywhere instead. This has all rendered the Dems irrelevant to discussions on the future economic strategy of the USA. And so they lose and will keep on losing to Trump who has a economic strategy. These elections are not about guns, KKK, misogyny, homophobia. They are about jobs, pensions and debt - it's the economy, stupids. But keep it up, Dems. Keep it up. Nancy Pelosi, you're great. Run, Hillary, run. Or Chelsea, run.; 6/21/17, 9:16 PM
chickelit said...: If some important Democrats and journalists saw on election night that the economic issue caused them to lose the election then why haven't some Democrats started to run on that issue and why haven't some Dem/journalists started to discuss it?

Centralized funding?; 6/21/17, 9:25 PM
Michael K said...: The interesting point is that in all the special elections since Nov. 2016 the Democrats have followed the line laid out by Hillary's campaign and by Rachel Maddow. They are still ignoring the economy, still trying to show Trump is unfit, still ignoring the expressed wishes of Trump voters - and still losing elections. And still bewildered by losing.

I see much the same thing over at Patterico from the NeverTrumpers. They cannot see that they have won and he is doing what they say they want,

They are all about his mannerisms.

No, my only objection is to your, and Patrick’s language about him since he is the elected president.

Q. What do you call human garbage that has been elected President of the United States?

A1. Mr. President.

A2. Human garbage.

I think Mike K would choose Answer 1. (Unless we are are taking about Obama.)

Me, I go with Answer 2. But then, I have never been the sort to be impressed by titles.

I consider my answer to be more typically American. But I could be wrong about that. Any way you slice it, it’s still my answer.

That's Patrick.

They can't see that they, and we, have won.; 6/21/17, 9:50 PM
Earnest Prole said...: If some important Democrats and journalists saw on election night that the economic issue caused them to lose the election then why haven't some Democrats started to run on that issue . . . ?

Race and gender politics are incompatible with class politics. When identity and ideology are unified by sneering at lower-class white men, it's very difficult to pretend otherwise come election time -- and they wouldn't believe you anyway.; 6/21/17, 9:55 PM
Ralph L said...: the WSJ is a bit better at international news, not surprisingly given Murdoch's news empire
The filthy rich CEOs of the evil multinationals must keep an eye on their overseas profits.; 6/21/17, 10:03 PM
readering said...: Paglia is a performance artist not an expert on newspaper journalism. And much farther it the left than the NYT editorial page.; 6/21/17, 10:04 PM
Left Bank of the Charles said...: All of the former worshippers of The New York Times should get together and found a new religion. But I'll let you in on a little blasphemy, that god did not exist, it was a figment of the imagination.; 6/21/17, 10:09 PM
David said...: "the most childish fraternity kind of buffoonish behavior."

A whiff of sexism emanates from the lady. What about the childish female buffoons?

Other than that she has it clearly in her sights.; 6/21/17, 10:11 PM
Known Unknown said...: "Paglia is a performance artist not an expert on newspaper journalism. And much farther it the left than the NYT editorial page."

Sure, whatever.; 6/21/17, 10:13 PM
Etienne said...: We don't have decades. The calendar ends in 2030.

I've already got my bags packed, and I'm taking some barbed-wire, because I bet the planet they are taking us to doesn't have barbed-wire. I will be like holding a masterpiece, not unlike a Warhol.

Well that, and my Dallas dictionary de l'anglais du sud...; 6/21/17, 10:34 PM
Jeff Weimer said...: Yet she can't stop voting for that party and it's worst impulses, no matter what. She's *excited* about hopefully voting for Kamala Harris, an exemplar of everything Paglia is complaining about.; 6/22/17, 12:10 AM
Fen said...: She is more right than she knows. I just read a NYTs article, and they are so blind they've forgotten they have eyes.

Why did the MSM turn the Georgia race into a spectacle? Was it to enhance the lives of the people that reside in that district? Nope.

Why did the Democrats spend $30 million to get Ossoff elected? Was it to enhance the lives of the people who live in that district? Nope.

Why did Ossoff run in the first place? Was it to enhance the lives of the people that reside in that district? Nope.

If was all about sending Trump and the GOP a "message", and creating a flag to wave in support of a Democrats Rising narrative.

This is why we avoid corruption, or nip it in the bud when we detect it. It damages you, it perverts good faith efforts and redirects them to bad ends. Not only do you wanted off the Path into the woods, you forget their is a path to get back to.

The NYTs lists a host of reasons why they lost. But none of those reasons address the foundational truth that they lost simply because they didn't give a damn about the people that live there.; 6/22/17, 12:24 AM
Fen said...: Wander not wanted, there not their. Thanks autocorrect.; 6/22/17, 12:26 AM
LordSomber said...: I do respect Paglia, but those are just nice words, and she will pull the same lever in the voting booth as always.

It's gonna take more than a Bernie vote to fix sh*t.; 6/22/17, 12:36 AM
Churchy LaFemme: said...: Eh, it's ok. If she leads a few people to the promised land, it won't matter too much that she's only seen it from a distance.; 6/22/17, 12:59 AM
D.E. Cloutier said...: In the 1960s and early 1970s, I spent seven years as a newspaperman. Normand Poirier (1928-1981) was my first mentor in the business. He also was an early influence on Pete Hamill.

Norm put a can of beer and a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes on my desk during my first day as a reporter. "You are the eyes and ears of the reader, not the brain," he said. "See. Hear. Don't think."

I followed Norm's advice. I didn't care about the publisher. I didn't care about the advertisers. I didn't care about politicians. I didn't want to change the world. I simply gathered and wrote accurate information for the readers of the paper.

I never had to write a retraction.

That's the way it was in the good old days!

Wiki on Norm:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normand_Poirier

Wiki on Pete Hamill:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Hamill; 6/22/17, 1:23 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: As hard as I try, it still wouldn’t have occurred to me

That's because you are one of the poorly educated, you know, the ones that Trump loves? (You should be nicer to him.)

to convert a perfectly good English phrase to French

Have you yet understood that the original quotation was French and that yours was the conversion?

Read yourself through a collection of Edgar Allan Poe sometime, if you can get to the back cover without running screaming from the room after his third or fourth multilingual epigraph.

or use tender as a verb -- speaking of which, have you managed to work the verb garner into your comments yet?

I don't work at it, it comes naturally. If anything, I have to dumb down my s*** for people like you. (LOL, Ritmo, there are times when I can relate to your fury!) If and when I choose to use the word "garner," Ann will grudgingly accept it as a valid usage.

You very rarely please me with your writing, Earnest. Work on it.; 6/22/17, 5:51 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: Dear Mr. Cloutier,

I simply gathered and wrote accurate information for the readers of the paper.

Exactly! There's a difference between information and advice. Anyone can give me information but when I want advice I'll ask for it.; 6/22/17, 5:54 AM
Curious George said...: "Right now, it is going to take decades to recover from this atrocity that’s going on where the news media have turned themselves over to the most childish fraternity kind of buffoonish behavior."

Wrong. It will never, ever, happen.; 6/22/17, 5:58 AM
Bad Lieutenant said...: D.E., was he any relation to Denise Poirier, sultry voice of Aeon Flux?

Curious George, I wouldn't say never, what are the odds they will never come under attack with military force?; 6/22/17, 6:57 AM
Jaq said...: Wrong. It will never, ever, happen

I agree with this. The media now belong to partisan Democrat billionaires and no way they give up that power. If you own a media outlet, you can do favors for whoever happens to be POTUS, how much is that worth to a crony capitalist like the gang now funding the Democrat Party.; 6/22/17, 6:59 AM
MaxedOutMama said...: By this time, I can't tell whether it is the media corrupting the Democratic party leadership or the Democratic leadership corrupting the media. My guess is that it is a self-reinforcing cycle of two codependent entities reinforcing each other in their dysfunction.

Because far too many in the MSM are printing Dem cant, no matter how far from reality that cant may be, and supporting and elaborating on that cant, the Democratic leadership has been able to form a reality-free bubble.

About 80% of the voters are not able to live in that bubble, and so the increasing disconnect and bizarre electioneering. The universities, on the whole, are doubling-down on the social suicide pact, and so "polite" society has worked itself into a self-reinforcing delusion.

The hilarious wrong-color-curtains-in-the-Oval-Office editorial Ann featured here on this blog a while ago is one example. The tragedy! The horror!

If the press had ever buckled down and really reported on the fact that the US death rate started to go up after a couple of years of ACA, maybe we would have a Democrat in the White House today. Any circle of vested interests with no external corrections allowed is destined to fail. Democratic fundraising has been doing poorly the last few months - my guess is that only when the money fails will enough pain be produced to generate meaningful leadership change.; 6/22/17, 7:27 AM
D.E. Cloutier said...: B. Lt.: "was he any relation to Denise Poirier"

I don't know. People with the same French Canadian surname are often related to each other in some way.; 6/22/17, 7:44 AM
FIDO said...: Hmm. Lefty students going to Lefty Colleges and going into a business where the majority of major voices are either former Democratic Operatives or married to former Democratic operatives

and we are surprised that they turned into cartoonish, one sided buffoons.

Camille spread her own shovelfuls of idiotic Lefty cant and she is seeing the products of her labor...and is surprised at the quality of the crop.

Sow. Reap.; 6/22/17, 7:44 AM
Dear corrupt left, go F yourselves said...: If you do not recognize fully that the alphabet channels - the MSM - are completely in the tank for the D-party - you are not paying attention.; 6/22/17, 8:07 AM
Tommy Duncan said...: Big Mike said:

"Paglia is wrong: a media consisting people who, by their own proud admission, want to change the world is what changed the Democrats by pushing them ever further left."

I agree. The media sets the agenda. The Democrat Party is along for the ride. It doesn't matter what the Democrats say, the media spins it to match the chosen media narrative. The Democrats' only successes come when the media is able to carry them to the finish line.

If the Democrats didn't exist the media would invent them. Think about how the media created BLM and the Occupy movement out of thin air. The Democrats are nothing without the media.; 6/22/17, 9:25 AM
Peter said...: The PC line seems to be, "Trump made us do it! Trump ruined journalism!

As if we can't see that journalism chose to ruin itself.; 6/22/17, 10:00 AM
Michael said...: It's really all about clickbait. Back in the day, you bought the whole paper or magazine or news broadcast and you at least skimmed over the whole thing, so the commercial value was in the overall brand. Now, pushed by the internet, each story has to stand on its own because people are skipping all over the place and you can often measure what they actually see. So you have to have an outrageous headline or viewpoint or whatever just to get any attention. And since the bulk of the people who read the national newspapers any more are urban, affluent, educated women those are the people whose attention they are trying to get.; 6/22/17, 10:08 AM
ALP said...: Was about to post similar to what Michael just said: the internet ruined the news. This is not a Dem vs Repub issue. The speed at which we have come to expect information, the dozens of ways we can isolate ourselves in our own info-bubble AND, most importantly, the fact that so much news is interpretation/opinion, which we can get elsewhere in exchange for clicking on an Amazon link. The insipid editorials in our local Seattle Times are so devoid of any real content, the writing so simplistic - I can find better writing outside the so called MSM.; 6/22/17, 10:44 AM
Wilbur said...: I question whether the criticism Paglia intermittently levels at the Dems and the media is sincere. Whenever she does she gets a lot of attention (and love) on blogs like this and Drudge. Without this, who would ever hear of her, a professor of Media Studies? Her pro-Sanders leftist outlook would get buried in the echo chamber she lives and works in. Could attention be her oxygen?

Like many others here, I've enjoyed reading her stuff over the years, stuff that makes me nod my head affirmatively while reading it. And I hope my suspicions are ill-founded.; 6/22/17, 11:04 AM
Fen said...: But it is refreshing how corruption weakened the MSM & Dems.

I wonder how many democrats in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania stayed home because the MSM, in an attempt to depress GOP turnout, was predicting a Hillary landslde.; 6/22/17, 11:08 AM
tpceltus said...: I've thought Paglia, when speaking on politics and current events, mixes her real observations with some provocative comments that she herself may or may not take seriously...that is, the interview is an opportunity for a fun (on her part) jousting match with a reporter, throwing out a bunch of stuff just to see what happens. She also, of course, gets publicity.

Her writing on the arts, however, is a different matter. "Glittering Images" is a series of very short, pithy essays on iconic art works throughout history. Her analysis for the British Film Institute of Hitchcock's "The Birds" is considered a classic...I expected something academically dry, precious, and boring...everything that's bad about film criticism. It wasn't at all. It was the first time that I understood how the artistic choices made by Hitchcock and the actors, special effects, etc., worked together to achieve the final product. One interesting piece of trivia from the book: the movie poster with Tippi Hedren being scared by the birds wasn't Hedren at all. It was her co-star, Agnes Moorhead. Hitchcock realized that, in some photographs and from some angles, Moorhead looked more like "Tippi Hedren" than Hedren herself did.

Both books are available on Amazon via the Althouse portal.; 6/22/17, 8:01 PM