"The cool kids, including President Barack Obama, occasionally mocked him behind his back for his cornball earnestness. Mr. Trump’s obsession with the media took the form of constant, obstreperous complaints and news-making leaks, a style Mr. Biden has suggested he finds merely embarrassing. Mr. Biden sought their approval with a more diligent and solicitous approach. As vice president, for instance, he was particularly attentive to the wise men of Washington, especially the foreign policy columnists David Ignatius of The Washington Post and Thomas L. Friedman of The Times. Mr. Biden liked nothing more than a wide-ranging, high-minded conversation about world affairs after he had returned from a trip to China or India. It seems that what Donald Trump did for the once-dying industry of cable news, Joe Biden may do for the dusty old newspaper column.... Mr. Trump has also gotten us all used to an extraordinary, if inadvertent, level of transparency. He rarely resisted answering shouted, timely questions, and his leaky White House offered journalists and their audience an X-ray portrait of a government running off the rails...."
Writes Ben Smith in "Get Me Meacham! Biden Brings Back the Media’s Good Old Days/The next president promises to do for old-line newspaper columnists what Donald Trump did for cable/What a time to be George Will!" (NYT).
I've been reading traditional media all along and can't stand cable news. I've followed Trump directly, reading his tweets and watching his rallies and press conferences. But will the people who've binged on cable news switch back to traditional print media like Newsweek and The New York Times just because Biden isn't keeping cable news fueled with hot tweets and video clips? It's not as though people need to consume news. They can pick video games or super-hero movies. There's all kinds of fast food for the mind. And if for some reason people want something more sober and intellectual, there are all kinds of heavier TV shows — "The Crown"! — and an endless supply of substantial books — Obama's memoir!
We don't need the latest news — especially when it's dull — to be analyzed more deeply or pseudo-deeply. We're free to branch out to more interesting things. And we can still listen to Trump, who is likely to become even funnier and wilder.
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63 comments:
I warned you that women shouldn't vote on anything bigger than a neighborhood system.
My only consolation is the looks on peoples faces within a year. I will laugh directly at them.
Joe the outsider? The victim? Come on, man!
Biden has been bribed by China. That’s the news.
"High minded conversation."
That's a very pretty way of saying bloodless. Thomas Friedman is no thoughtful person's wise guru.
As vice president, for instance, he was particularly attentive to the wise men of Washington, especially the foreign policy columnists David Ignatius of The Washington Post and Thomas L. Friedman of The Times. Mr. Biden liked nothing more than a wide-ranging, high-minded conversation about world affairs after he had returned from a trip to China or India.
This would explain why he's been wrong about so much regarding foreign policy for the past forty years.
They all really do think that once Trump is gone things will go back to the way they were before: that Trump will be an aberration in the history books. They are going to be sorely disappointed.
The legacy media is dead. Biden isn't going to bring them back. In fact, didn't he trash a CBS reporter just yesterday?
I have to puke now.
Outsider? Ha! George W Bush gave his kid a 90K per annum board membership at Amtrak just to grease his palm. Same as the credit card industry gave his one a lucrative job right out of college, and all Joe Robinette Biden had to do was push through the bankruptcy laws the totally fucked over consumers, and IIRC, made it so student loans couldn’t be discharged through bankruptcy.
Unlike other types of consumer debt such as credit card and mortgages, student loans traditionally cannot be discharged in bankruptcy. In 2005, Congress passed, and President George W. Bush signed, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which exempted federal and private students loans from discharge.
W and Joe were sure good buddies. Masters of War.
"Mr. Biden liked nothing more than a wide-ranging, high-minded conversation about world affairs after he had returned from a trip to China or India. “
While his son the bag man pocket uncounted and likely uncountable millions.
Wonder if Biden-butt tastes better than Obama-ass?
-XC
"We don't need the latest news when its dull to be analyzed more deeply or pseudo-deeply."
But I thought you liked boring?
Jon Meacham. A fine middlebrow historian, but when it comes to journalism and commentary, a leading candidate for "Sewanee's most loathsome alumnus."
rhhardin said...I warned you that women shouldn't vote on anything bigger than a neighborhood system.
Only the people who value the things you value should be allowed to vote?
This is what American propaganda looks like. I am sure Biden often thought when he was in China that he sure could use a. compliant media like that that wasn’t so much scared to ask him uncomfortable questions, but had been so thoroughly purged of curiosity that the idea of asking a question that could cost them their comfy and cushy jobs would never occur to them.
And here we are.
Expat(ish) said...Wonder if Biden-butt tastes better than Obama-ass?
Sounds like a question for the White House Press Corps.
Russian collusion guy is set to be dealing with Putin and his nukes if Biden wins. Well as long as Biden keeps shutting down competition for Vladimir and jacks up oil prices nicely for him so Putin can fund his military, I am sure it will all be fine.
This works out for Biden cronies too, because the more money Putin has to spend on weapons, the more weapons the US will have to buy of of W and Joe’s buddies in the weapons industry.
Honest, boring, and earnest Joe with his face pressed against the glass for the last 47 years. Also they left out the boring policy wonk, Paul Krugman.
One good thing to come out of President Trump's tenure is that the NYT, WaPo, et al. took off their masks to show how utterly partisan (and pro-deep-state) they are.
Only a credulous fool could believe that anything they say on any subject is objective. It is all shaped to fit and advance the party line.
He is still on the outside looking in and may well stay that way
Zachary Larsen, a lawyer who worked for the state of Michigan as asst AG, swore in his affidavit he witnessed poll workers peeking at ballots to see who a voter voted for before deciding whether to put them in a pile of rejected ballots. https://gofile.io/d/uftZPW
https://twitter.com/RoscoeBDavis1/status/1330793820552916993
This fight ain’t over. That’s just one deposition. This goes to the phone bank data that shows that 44% of Michigan Republicans contacted, and they contacted a LOT of them, who said they had voted absentee never had their votes counted.
The Old Guys get one more spin around the block in the jalopy before they die.
Ben smith who is facing an office purge. Who published the danchenko dossier at buzzfeed. A premier journolister at politico
Ignatius really had the scoop about robert ames and the black prince, which he parlayed into his first novel. Which informed some aspects of pre civil war lebanon. But there is that rejectionist persoective i didnt catch on later like the fellow ramlawi consults is haj amin huseini hitler bff and arafats uncle.
Translation: Biden is accepting applications to form a coterie of pliant columnist who will be given career-making exclusive access, and you'll have real influence too! Promise.
Break out a fresh set of quill pens and fire up the Linotype machines!
Let me entertain you
Let me make you smile
Let me do a few tricks
Some old and then some new tricks
I'm very versatile
And if you're real good
I'll make you feel good
I'd want your spirit to climb
So let me entertain you
We'll have a real good time
Yes sir
We'll have
A real good time
When you sniff the hair of random children, you might not get invited to all the best parties.
The 'wise men of Washington' will cover for Biden and his mental deficiencies as if they don't exist for as long as they can. And no one, except for their captured audience in Manhattan, Washington DC, and the northern Virginia suburbs, will pay attention to any of them.
We, as a country, have moved beyond them. We will continue to move away from them. And they will reside into a deeper bubble that will more closely resemble a museum vignette or a curiosity than a source for interesting and insightful observations.
Well till the iranian emp takes out the power grid
https://mobile.twitter.com/LeeSmithDC/status/1330544456290996227
I, for one, am going to miss America. It was great while it lasted.
We don't need the latest news — especially when it's dull — to be analyzed more deeply or pseudo-deeply.
The Banality of Evil. No need to look too closely.
It's interesting to see how the Press tries to re-write Biden. He's spent 47+ years in DC and done nothing but get rich. In other words, he is a typical politician.
"Arendt found [Adolf] Eichmann an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat, who in her words, was ‘neither perverted nor sadistic’, but ‘terrifyingly normal’."
Biden should cross the aisle and include Jennifer Rubin and David Brooks into his inner circle.
Well, Biden showed them all up in the end. His vote totals in the most recent election, referenced against census data and compared to Obama and every other prior candidate, puts all of them to shame. Obama isn't "The One", Biden is. He literally blew the doors off Obama's vote counts and drove a massive turnout amid unparalleled enthusiasm. Obama's previous record vote count from the historic 2008 Election was a mere 69.5M, compared to Joe's 79.5M (and counting!).
Joe Biden has just set an incredibly high bar for GOTV efforts for all future candidates. Will they have Joe's potent combination of inspiration, expertise, energy and vision?
I'm surprised I haven't heard more about these historic, almost legendary, accomplishments in the press. It must be the right wing bias in the mainstream media suppressing this astounding outcome.
You girls like having your panties in a bunch.
Here's a prediction: beginning January 21, 2021, the news media will finally re-discover their ethics, and there will be no more stories based on anonymous sources, rumors won't be printed as truth, and countless stories about the President's children will never occur.
If you think the people who run the 'Biden' administration are going to do nice, boring stuff, you are a feather head of the highest order.
"...substantial books — Obama's memoir! "
I suppose voluminous is somewhat synonymous with substantial.
When will the press discuss Biden's corruption and international family enriching grift?
No other issue or story matters more.
The rest is 'The Style Section'
Biden loses temper with CBS reporter Bo Erickson
Press told to shut up. Press obey.
"Mr. Biden liked nothing more than a wide-ranging, high-minded conversation about world affairs.."
I bet Ben Smith literally was ROFLOL after he finished typing that.
I ignore the media; I do not trust it.
But will the people who've binged on cable news switch back to traditional print media like Newsweek and The New York Times just because Biden isn't keeping cable news fueled with hot tweets and video clips?
No. They will just watch less cable news.
Less news means less time watching those channels, not a return to things like Newsweek, which sort of died for a while, didn't it? Also, Trump was great for the Times. He made it -- or the Times made itself -- a bastion of the resistance, a totem of progressive belonging. Now that he's gone, fewer people will need it.
It is to laugh.
"wise men of Washington"
George died in 1799.
Like, I said, everybody is somebody's snob and somebody's slob. Joe has been extremely fortunate, but if he feels that he's the puppy nobody wanted to give a home to ... well, that's how he feels. But how much does he feel now? Hasn't he left a lot behind on his journey to oblivion? His own mental oblivion. The rest of us still have to put up with him.
So, now that Trump is supposedly lost, we're back to The first lady is so marvelous" and respecting the President and his family.
Not a single 'reporter' will do any kind of digging on a Biden administration nor on his past.
The reason Biden was an outsider is because he is dumb.
The 'elite' in DC may be evil but they are not stupid by any means.
Biden is the guy in the corner eating paste at a MENSA dinner.
Newsweek died when it's editor at the time Evan Thomas, claimed that Obama was "almost God". The Activists went full force whack job after that. Remember Journ-O-List??? They suicided themselves.
“Washington aristocracy” is all in for Biden per WaPo
https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1330882484783857666
This is what the Democrat Part has become, the party of the plutocrats, and rank and file Democrats are living vicariously off the coattails of power. I think they do analysis of their own voters, and when they find unflattering stuff, they accuse Republicans of it. One thing we Republicans know is that we are shut out from the elite halls of power, so I am not sure how that was supposed to work.
Stale, old liberal columnists excited with stale, old liberal Joe.
The one positive about a potential Biden successful steal of the election is the left wing press is going to get hammered.
NYT? WaPo? Their subscription numbers sucked under Obama. They would suck at least as much, if not more, under Biden.
The young lefties are going to get their "news" on Twitter. The old ones will tune out of a press that never reports anything wrong about the Democrats. When there's no information in the "news" there's no point in paying for it.
If those idiots in the press had the slightest sense of self preservation, they'd be running wall to wall stories about the vote corruption
As vice president, for instance, he was particularly attentive to the wise men of Washington, especially the foreign policy columnists David Ignatius of The Washington Post and Thomas L. Friedman of The Times. Mr. Biden liked nothing more than a wide-ranging, high-minded conversation about world affairs after he had returned from a trip to China or India.
They aren't really "wise men," are they? Friedman peddles trendy books, and Ignatius is at best a reporter, right?
But of course, the legendary "wise men" of the mid-century may not have been so wise either. If you learned about them when you were young, they probably seemed more substantial than they were, just as "the Establishment" looked more serious and consequential, back then. If the "wise men" and "the Establishment" really were what people said they were, we've fallen a long way since then.
Lurker21 said...
"But will the people who've binged on cable news switch back to traditional print media like Newsweek and The New York Times just because Biden isn't keeping cable news fueled with hot tweets and video clips?"
No. They will just watch less cable news.
Yep. Conservatives won't watch Fox, because they've shown they hate us, and will lie to advance the Left's agenda (polls weren't even closed in CA and they were ready to predict that the Dems would pick up 5 - 15 seats in the House, not lose 10+). Leftists don't need to watch MSNBC, CNN, etc. because there's going to be no news on them other than Dems lose another Senate filibuster, and the Dems lose another case in the Supreme Court.
All the Resistance grifters are going to hurt so much with their grift gone
Ignatius was pretty good in his first novels, I would say body of lies, was still good, but his last about russian hacking in the markets, well that was bad, maybe it's up to entous to cover for him,
I just had an amusing, if off topic, thought:
If Biden does manage to steal this election, but the GOP keeps control of the Senate, 60 - 40 Cocaine Mitch decides to "nuke" the filibuster back in for all appointments, Judicial including the Supreme Court, as well as Executive branch
It keeps the "moderates" from being able to stab the GOP in the back, and means that ones who actually DO need a free vote to suck up to their constituents can do so.
Win, win.
Of course, part of the fun would be watching all the lefties scream bloody murder
“and an endless supply of substantial books — Obama's memoir! “
Troll level, Grand Master.
Friedman strikes me as the owner's bratty, fat little kid we all have to let get away with whatever he wants...
Ben smith is a special kind of stupid.
"high-minded conversation about world affairs"
Involving Joe Biden!
Joe Biden spent most of his career licking windows.
Cornball earnestness--is that what we're calling it now?
George Will had better hope that Libs like his columns. Cons, not so much.
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