Friday, June 22, 2007

I will RESIST the strong urge to call Michelle Malkin . . .

the word that is the focus of my previous post here. Instead I will say that even considering she is one of the professional pundits (rot all pundits) she is not only merely one of the robots repeating the same witless garbage here, but also engaging in the same old tired and witless rhetorical tricks favored by the Right Wing Noise Machine.

Sorry, that sentence got a bit out of control, and I have yet to specify what I am talking about. What I am talking about is the mock and faux outrage (as published by organs and affilliates of said mentioned noisemachine) about that report about journalists and political contributions.

The artificial (and yes deranged) histronics over this story is deflated with these two points.

Point One:

Bad (and witless) Rhetorical Tricks.

Certain Pundits like to make unequal comparisons in a cheap and dirty attempt to make a point. Now such cheap tricks never work on people who know the difference, however the cheap and dirty trick is still used as there are so many "in the choir" who will ignore the lack of logic and reason in these statements . . . . as long as a lib is getting slammed on the end of it.

Did I say witless yet? Maybe pathetic is a better way of saying it.

Moving on, let's look at how Malkin used the cheap and dirty trick here. Taken from her rant, the following:

"Get the picture now? Wearing an American flag: Not OK. Donating to a White-Flag Democrat: A-OK!"

Um, what does wearing a lapel pin have to do with political contributions?

NOTHING!


Whenever you see someone making a comparison on the order of, say, that apples and bagels are the same, you, dear reader, should know that someone is not only trying to bullshit you, but doing it badly.

Point Two:


Ok; let's break down this particular instance of bullshit. For a journalist to wear a flag pin while one the air is not, I agree, that big a deal, BUT it is too close to being a cheerleader while one is allegedly and ideally supposed to be engaged in the delivery of the news of the day (here comes the pay off):

in as OBJECTIVELY and UNPERSONALLY BIASED a manner as is POSSIBLE.

It may not be the job of journalism to tear down the government and the rest of society, merely for the sake of tearing it down. However, it is not the job of journalism to be a cheerleader for either the government, a certain political POV, or certain individuals. We have a name for people or institutions who do that job: PUNDITS. Also, we call people with that job flacks, PR, spokesmen/women, representatives, and at worst, hos.

And while I am at it, I will say that the job of the journalists is to tell us the news of the day, with the least amt. of bullshit, bias, or spin, as is possible.

Ok?


Now any given American has a right as an American to make political contributions (within the lawful limits.)


So, I don't get the freak out here, kids. We are talking about two things that have little to do with each other, leave alone being on anything like a par.

Guess some people just got tired of whining about the Immigration bill or whatever??

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