Klavan On The Culture

October 20th, 2009 11:34 am

Breitbart/Taranto

The Wall Street Journal’s estimable James Taranto wrote a profile this past weekend of my likewise estimable friend Andrew Breitbart, the now-famous internet… uh, something-or-other… who knows what that guy does exactly? Anyway, Breitbart did an excellent job of explaining how his recent humiliation of ACORN through the pimp-and-hooker tapes of make-believe pimp and hooker James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles was also–maybe even primarily–a calculated humiliation of the “Democrat-media complex.” Breitbart’s brilliant strategy of slowly releasing the damning tapes at specific times was designed to circumvent what he knew would be the media’s counter-strategy of attacking the messenger to protect ACORN and the Obama administration. Breitbart outguessed our corrupt and statist news brokers at every step of the way. It was a beautiful thing to behold and great to hear him tell the tale of how he pulled it off.

What was annoying–and rather puzzling–about the WSJ piece was Taranto’s unnecessary and seemingly knee-jerk rationalization for the media’s malfeasance. No one knows better than Taranto what fools these journalists be. His excellent and frequently hilarious online column Best of the Web (to which I’ve occasionally provided unpaid contributions) is practically a catalogue of their misdeeds. Yet for some reason, he skewed the Breitbart profile with remarks like this: “Even if one accepts Mr. Breitbart’s critique of the mainstream media, nobody should root for their downfall or destruction. Their role—that of impartial watchdog and broker of information—is a vital one, whether or not they perform it well.”

But, of course, that’s exactly Breitbart’s point: the mainstream media don’t perform their role of impartial watchdog well–they don’t perform it at all! And the importance of that task only serves to make their corruption all the worse–as when the police become corrupt and collaborate with criminals. Our media is now thorougly dishonest, thoroughly seduced by the left’s statist agenda. The institution needs to be reformed. And that won’t happen without people like Breitbart–and Taranto, for that matter–taking them to school–reform school specifically, where they most certainly belong.

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7 Comments

1. Gary Ogletree:

Smells like an editor may have inserted that stupidity.

Oct 20, 2009 - 2:29 pm 2. maineman:

It occurred to me the other day that our entire culture has become like a narcissistic individual, someone with an “as if” personality. A narcissist directs much or all of his or her energy to buttress a facade of inflated self-value, a mask that defends against a more realistic recognition of limitations and vulnerabilities and which promotes a world view — to the self and everyone else — that things are “as if” this or that were the case, rather than what they really are.

The MSM and our political elites function to maintain this charade while many of us represent a more grounded awareness that is trying to break through but is forced to contend with repressive defenses — actually denial, rationalization, and externalization, to be more specific.

What’s the significance of this? I don’t know really, but it seemed kind of cool.

Except for the obvious, which is that the narcissist eventually engineers his or her downfall unless something intervenes.

Oct 20, 2009 - 2:55 pm 3. The Elephant's Child:

Ah, but there is good news. The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism is dropping their Environmental Journalism program. No jobs.

Looking at the school’s catalog online, coursework seems to consist entirely of how to write different kinds of pieces — from crime to health to food. If journalism students had any interest in history or science or statistics or business, they should have picked it up in their undergraduate work. Do you suppose that has something to do with their lack of understanding of the job of “broker of information.”

Oct 20, 2009 - 6:18 pm 4. Spike:

There’s an old Moody Blues song who’s premise amounts to “Timmy Leary’s dead….oh no….he’s on the outside looking in” at the rest of us…Western culture..modern man…whatever. It was a one-ime clever, but eventually played take on the LSD experience and the drug’s capacity to interupt one’s ego and thus narcisstic self delusion. That was sooo 60s.

Now…today when I read about how Mr. Breitbart, O’Keefe, and sweet Hannah brillantly took down ACORN on so many different levels and angles, I think they’re the ones “who are on the outside looking in” at present day Western culture…modern man…the MSM and the children of the Left.
And, all without aid of any sort of drugs. Sober conservatives taking down the liberals who thought Timmy was so cool. Joke’s on you…dude.

Oct 20, 2009 - 6:20 pm 5. starling:

It’s hard to know which is more shameful:

(1) that the media wasn’t already investigating ACORN thoroughly
(2) that two amateurs have forced their hands to do so
(3) that the Administration–through its attacks on Fox–is warning the mainstream media away from this and similar stories or
(4) that the MSM allow themselves to be treated in this way by the Administration.

Okeefe and Giles may have posed as a pimp and prostitute but they are not the only ones acting in these roles.

Oct 21, 2009 - 8:02 pm 6. RWE:

I think the answer to Taranto’s attitude is provided by recent White House attacks on Fox News Channel: Labeling them as “not a real news organization.”

I have little doubt that the White House would label PJ Media the same way. Indeed it’s very name comes from the dismissive treatment of it by “real news organizations.”

It appears that the White House smear campaign against FNC is based on a real and basic fear within the media.

But what we are seeing is the start of an inversion of the media, a sesimic shift. FNC, PJ Media, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and investigative journalists like Breitbart are demonstrably the real news organizations.

Maybe that is what the Mayan predictions about 2012 are all about. The world will go right on rolling along but the people who define “Real” will no longer be part of the new Reality.

Oct 22, 2009 - 8:39 am 7. james wilson:

“Their role—that of impartial watchdog and broker of information—is a vital one, whether or not they perform it well” is incoherent, at best, or we would need to accept the proposition that their role is vital if they perform it badly, or worse, seditiously.
Remember that Taranto lives at the third most liberal news-section in the country.

Nov 4, 2009 - 7:50 am