Of Trump And Class Warfare

I've never watched "The Apprentice." Don't think I ever will either.

But you don't want to think about society's castoffs and losers, do you? No way! It's bad enough just glimpsing them on the street or smelling them in the corner store when you're in the middle of some really important gourmet-ice-cream-related errand.

The ambitious young yuppies on NBC's "The Apprentice" can totally relate! When asked to create a 60-second commercial for Renuzit Super Odor Neutralizer, Frank and Nicole made a super-funny commercial about a mom whose son is in the hospital right next to a smelly homeless guy! Ewww! As the camera rolls, the son's cute little button nose wrinkles in disgust and he gestures at the guy in the next bed. Like most proud citizens of your first-world nations of choice, Junior's pristine nose was revolting at the merest unwanted whiff of something that didn't smell completely citrusy or shower-fresh. Mommy took a moment to grimace at the stench emitted by the bum (Haw haw haw! The sweet-smelling, creative-minded yuppies in the room laughed and laughed!), then she helpfully whipped out her bottle of delicious-smelling chemicals and sprayed it in the air 50 or 60 times. And just like that, the middle-class mom saved her innocent son's virgin nose from the nasty stank of an under-bathed ne'er-do-well! Hurray!

Yeah. Poor people are funny. And just think. We'll have so many more opportunities to laugh at them in the coming years.

Today I Weep for Journalism

Last night I watched "Scarborough Country." I don't expect anything like unbiased reporting from the former Congressman turned "news man." Sad enough that he is featured prominently on a "news" network. Sadder still to hear him lament the sad demise of esteemed broadcast journalist Barbara Walters's reputation. Saddest of all to acknowledge that he is right.

SCARBOROUGH: Matthew, explain to people, if you will, that only know her through “The View” and through those interviews that she does on ABC—I guess “20/20” she‘s been doing for years—explain to people what a trailblazer Barbara Walters was and how hard she worked for her reputation, that Rosie O‘Donnell tatters every time she does something like this.

FELLING: Absolutely. It has been a shock to me that she‘s been putting up with this for this long. She is the patron saint. She is the woman that all female journalists since the ‘70s looked up to and said, “You know what? She can do it; I‘m going to do, too.”

She was perfection. She was the gold standard with regards to female journalists through the ‘80s, into the ‘90s. And now she‘s doing this Faustian bargain, where she‘s willing to put up with it, but only so far. And I do really think that Rosie‘s days are numbered.

I hate "The View." I've never understood what the seasoned news woman thought she was doing when she launched this show. For the trail-blazer who broke through the glass ceiling and proved that a woman could deliver news with the same sense of gravitas and dignity of her male counterparts, to be associated with a format that sounds more like a coffee-clatch than a news show, has always struck me as the ultimate come-down. "The View" seems almost designed to prove that women are biologically determined to be gossipy, shallow, and unserious. And now the show has reached a new low. Rosie O'Donnell's public feud with Donald Trump is playing out with all the dignity of professional wrestling.

Sadly this makes Rosie only slightly more ridiculous than the crop of talking heads scattered across the cable dial. Anchors no longer deliver news. They bloviate. From Bill O'Reilly's projection about everyone else's bias, to Tim Russert's pandering/badgering intensity, to Chris Matthews bullying and obsequious "I agree with you" brown-nosing. And while the left has its intellectually satisfying Keith Olbermann diatribes, one could hardly confuse his pontificating with objectivity. Wisdom and surprising literacy, but not objectivity.

The whole of broadcast news, which once held promise as a medium for disseminating information, has devolved into self-parody. It's a cheap carney side show which I half expect to start featuring geeks biting the heads off live chickens.

Fox News has gone through the looking glass with grammatically challenged spokesmodels, spouting McCarthyesque agitprop:

GRETCHEN CARLSON: You talk about the hostile enemy, obviously being Iraq, but hostile enemies right here on the home front. Yesterday Senator Ted Kennedy, proposing that any kind of a troop surge should mean there should be congressional approval of that. A lot of democrats not coming to his side on this. But obviously this is not going to be an easy sell on Capitol Hill, even if it’s not an easy sell to the American Public.

But tragically the rest of the industry has followed it through to the Red Queen's court.

None of this is news to blogosphere, I'm sure; which functions as one of the few watchdog venues for an industry which seems to have no adequate check or balance. But lately I find myself thinking back to the early days when a much missed Media Whores Online began its crusade to remind the Fourth Estate of its proud heritage. Watching Scarborough last night I came to the sad realization that the wreckage of Benjamin Franklin's legacy has declined still further and shows little hope of regaining the high ground.

Americans across the political spectrum confuse what can only be described as self-righteous indignation with refreshing honesty. Who wants the dry, impartial reporting of a Walter Cronkite or a young Barbara Walters, when they can get their factoids from carnival barkers and blond chippies in push-up bras? I'm left waxing nostalgic for a time when the empty-headed Bill Boggs and the crass Morton Downey Jr. represented the lunatic fringe of a profession yearning to be taken seriously. Today their antics seem tame by comparison.

What accounts for broadcast journalism doesn't belong on a "news" channel. It should be fought out in the Roman Coliseum, awaiting the thumbs up or thumbs down from Emperor Bush. Entertainment for the hoi poloi to distract them from our crumbling empire.

Defining Deviancy Down

The MADD mothers have dumped Miss Teen USA. Thank goodness someone in this whole, ridiculous melee is capable of acting like a grown-up. Certainly no one can argue with the reasoning.

"In the past, MADD has teamed with Miss Teen USA to raise awareness about the serious and often deadly consequences of underage drinking. However, we do not feel, at this time, that Ms. Blair can be an effective spokesperson on underage drinking and will not ask her to represent MADD in future initiatives," Heidi Castle, a spokeswoman for MADD, said in a statement.

Full disclosure: I have no love for beauty pageants. I have this crazy, radically feminist notion that women should be judged by the content of their character. I know that pageant organizations have long emphasized the crucial role of talent and an abiding concern for world peace in their contests. Yes, the ideal woman can sing an aria, is congenial, and just happens to look great in a bathing suit. Pageants have to work very hard to elevate the idea of parading women around and judging them by their appearance above the obvious objectifying sexism. They do it by insisting on broader criteria that includes things like morals clauses. When Donald Trump gave Tara Conner a "second chance" he gave the lie to the whole business and reminded the world what beauty pageants are all about. Pretty matters. Character, not so much.

Madman in the Marketplace did an excellent job of putting this charade into a broader cultural perspective. There are different standards for pretty white girls from prominent families.

We like to say that we’re a land that believes in second chances, that if someone is sincere about changing their life we Americans will support and welcome them when they’ve picked themselves up, and we’ll do everything we can to help them. This is, of course, utter bullshit. You get second chances if you’re of the right class, the right race, the right connections. Otherwise the full weight of our government and rapacious tabloid media will be brought down on your head....if a darker pretty girl in it had been tested positive for drugs, she’d be far more likely to be facing charges than a stay at a celebrity rehab center. Our enormous prison system is bulging with people who did the same things that Miss Perfect American is reported to have done. Unlike her, many who get caught doing drugs or acting out in public are put into the system, and once in the odds of them getting a second chance disappear...

It would surely be grand if our culture genuinely supported the idea of treatment for addicts, rather than punishment. But there is a difference between the draconian nature of our criminal justice system and simple consequences. Tara Conner faces neither. I doubt Miss Conner is an addict. She's more likely a kid acting out. But lets say for the sake of argument that she really is an addict in need of treatment. If so, Trump has done the worst possible thing he could have done if his intent was to help her. He's enabled her addiction by depriving her of the opportunity to experience the consequences of her behavior. She violated an agreement. She should have been fired. Period.

Perhaps that's what Rosie O'Donnell was on about in her latest bout of verbal diarrhea. I suppose she means well when she tries to remind viewers of "The View" about simple decency. It's unfortunate that she can't seem to do it without equally indecent ad hominem attacks that will likely land her in a slander suit.

I seem to remember a time when public figures acted with a certain level of decorum. I was very young then, I think. It all seems like a memory in my dreams now; an America that strove for a certain cultural standard, even it never quite achieved it. News was presented with a sense of gravitas by men like Walter Cronkite, rather than the screaming hysteria of a Rosie O'Donnell or Bill O'Reilly. And beauty pageants were shiny, child-friendly spectacles, whose winners usually slipped into a kind of quiet, wholesome obscurity. I don't know. Maybe it was Utah.