I’ve fallen away from political analysis. It just seems so pointless. And besides I am a busy man.
However, this meta-analysis by Jay Rosen captured what I think lies at the heart of the problem:
The brutalizing of McClellan was no recovery of courage by a suddenly-awakened press. It was the Bush team’s bald assertiveness coming into conflict with truth collection in the criminal justice system, which has exposed a seamy story that journalists themselves would have kept hidden because it involves their confidential sources. (See Howard Fineman’s very different analysis.)
In the normal conduct of McClellan’s briefings, the non-answer (a refusal to engage a question, or even grant it validity) has become the standard answer. “Why bother asking…?” then arises as a problem in professional conscience. It involves trying to estimate the value of having another empty reply in the record of what the White House spokesman said. As Fineman wrote:
The deliberately colorless Ari Fleischer raised the content-free “briefing” to a dismal high art; Scott McClellan… is if anything, even less communicative and, unlike Fleischer, who once worked on the more media-friendly Hill, never betrays the slightest sense of guilt about saying nothing.
Hugh McLeod on the ignorance premium
The Terrible Business Model of Red vs. Blue. I attended this talk in March, and it blew me away.
Sadi on “What price free content?”. Believe it or not, I think she wrote this in response to a fascinating telephone conversation we had.
I’ve mentioned before that I write fiction under several psuedonyms which are occasionally mentioned here. Here’s a promise: almost all my ebooks will say on the front page “Now a Major Motion Picture”.