The Diary of A Simple Man

I just had to smack down Mark Penn, the chief strategist for Hillary Clinton's campaign, on a chat over at the Washington Post. He's discussing a book that he supposedly wrote recently.

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"So i think there may be more older people who are looking for more later careers."

Sir, do you really write like this? If so, I find it hard to believe that you actually wrote a book by yourself. Or is this shamefully lax grammar and punctuation somehow indicative of contempt for your audience here?

Perhaps you're trying to "fit in" with what you believe to be current blog style. If so, I urge you to reconsider. You are representing a presidential candidate, if indirectly, and it would behoove you to behave accordingly!

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What do you think the odds are that he'll take the question? :D

Moments later: Holy cow, he did!

I just posted this letter on Salon. I wish I could make a louder noise about it; I find it extremely annoying when a supposedly credible journalist can blatantly show himself to be such an utter whore.

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I realize that this is merely a drop in the bucket, but Howard Kurtz once again showed that his brief is defending the media rather than critiquing it, as the title of his Washington Post column claims.

In a chat today ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2007/06/01/DI2007060101431.html ) the first question he took was from Arlington, VA. The questioner expressed dismay at the media's intense coverage of reporters who got injured in Iraq, compared to the relative silence about injuries and fatalities suffered by US soldiers. Kurtz's reply, in total:

Howard Kurtz: If you had seen Kimberly Dozier's special or read my piece, you would know that she puts the emphasis on what happens to American troops, not on her injuries or the deaths of her two CBS colleagues. Yes, prominent network correspondents who are injured tend to get more attention than unknown soldiers, but both Dozier and Bob Woodruff have used their personal tragedies to train the spotlight back on the soldiers. Here's what Dozier, who had more than 25 operations after the bombing, told me:

"The importance of that day is not that we were there. We were there during what happens to soldiers 20 to 30 times a day. Everything that happened that day is the story of the U.S. military in Iraq."

As you probably noticed, Kurtz was being disingenuous. The questioner wasn't criticising the injured reporters; s/he was critiquing the rest of the media. Why did Kurtz chose to pretend otherwise?

I posted a comment immediately:

Mr. Kurtz, your response to Arlington, Va. begged the question. The questioner was not blaming the injured reporters for the skewed coverage; s/he was blaming the rest of the media, i.e. your beat.

Instead of responding, you used the injured reporters themselves as cover to avoid the issue. Could you respond to the question that was asked, please?

Needless to say, my comment did not meet Mr. Kurtz's high standards for response. Thank goodness he had time to address such important issues as large-breasted spammers on MySpace, his experiences wearing bell-bottomed jeans, the wackiness and irrelevance of Cindy Sheehan, a replacement for Don Imus, and the state of Stone Phillip's career.

Nice to know that Mr. Kurtz has his priorities - and his duties as America's most-respected media critic - in order!

Broder made this comment in chat today, and I couldn't resist. He didn't respond, of course.

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"In America today, the premium on brains is large enough that most smart, profesionally trained people, when they reach middle age, are comfortably well off."

My goodness, Mr. Broder. You really ARE insulated from the working class, aren't you!

That's probably just as well. We're all filthy, you know, and you wouldn't want to end up soiled by contact with the little people.

I'll try not to take your comment personally.

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He's SUCH a Republican tool - read the rest of the chat. His partisanship is so blatant it's ridiculous. I almost asked him - um, something so gross that I won't post it here.