Rapa Nui Daily Press Briefing

Stop Genuflecting and Start Reporting
Editor & Publisher reports that the press isn’t swallowing the White House’s characterization of the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing as a historical document:

Many newspapers ran Scott Lindlaw’s Associated Press wrap-up which opened this way: “President Bush was told more than a month before the Sept. 11 attacks that al-Qaida had reached America’s shores, had a support system in place for its operatives and that the FBI had detected suspicious activity that might involve a hijacking plot.”

The Shame of the Cities
Sunday’s New York Times had an excellent Editorial Observer column by Adam Cohen on the corrupting influence of business on government:

What opened the door to public corruption, Steffens concluded, was the blurring of the line between business and government. The average American “deplores our politics and lauds our business,” Steffens wrote, and therefore wants more businessmen involved in government. But this impulse ignores what business is all about: generating profits. It is folly, Steffens argued, to expect businessmen to look after any interest broader than their own.

Why do editors keep throwing “The Boondocks” off the funnies page?
The New Yorker profile of “Boondocks” creator Aaron McGruder describes the cartoonist’s difficult relations with his would-be supporters on the left:

But what McGruder saw when he looked around at his approving audience was this: a lot of old, white faces. What followed was not quite a coronation. McGruder, who rarely prepares notes or speeches for events like this, began by thanking Thurman, “the most ass-kicking woman in America.” Then he lowered the boom. He was a twenty-nine-year-old black man, he said, who got invited to such functions all the time, so you could imagine how bored he was. He proceeded to ramble, at considerable length, and in a tone, as one listener put it, of “militant cynicism,” with a recurring theme: that the folks in the room (“courageous”? Please) were a sorry lot.

But Do They Ride Sidesaddle?

Popular Culture and Its Discontents

I was channel surfing while reading the Sunday papers this evening. It’s hard to say which was more depressing. The Nick & Jessica Variety Hour featured Jessica Simpson singing duets with Jewel and Kenny Rogers. In both cases the facial expressions of Simpson’s partners were a study. Jewel was a snaggle-toothed mood ring: boredom, alarm, self-loathing and irritation came and went from her face as Simpson emoted her way through “Who Will Save Your Soul.” Kenny Rogers watched Simpson perform with the bemused expression of one humoring a not terribly precocious niece who’s wandered on stage.
Then there’s the ABC series Alias, which features Jennifer Garner as a CIA officer. It is absolutely unwatchable for two reasons: Every time I see Garner I think drag queen; and I’ve caught her on two talk show appearances, during which she took herself so seriously that you’d think she actually disarmed nuclear weapons for a living. In a particularly bad spasm of self importance she told Conan O’Brien: “Snuck isn’t a word. You went to Harvard, Conan! You should know that.” When the Late Night host produced a dictionary after the break, Garner’s expression was one of naked loathing.