danajohnhill.org

I’m listening right now, for the first time, to Barbirolli’s recording of Otello. I am struck by how many huge edits there are. Nevertheless, Gwyneth Jones is a really sad and lovely Desdemona, her Ave Maria exquisite; James McCracken was a better Otello than people give him credit for; and, though Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is clearly odd in Italian repertoire, especially Verdi, his characterization of Iago is thoughtful. Plus, he avoids the cackling at the end of the Credo, which I appreciate. This is out of print, of course, and I forgot I even had it. Wow, Jones is good.

I get so angry when I see members of the mainstream media repeat as Gospel what amounts to Republican talking points. In today’s Washington Post, Ruth Marcus, in a column otherwise devoted to laughing off Vice President Cheney’s criminal behavior, writes the following:

“This is Cheney’s version of the $400 haircut/I voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it/I invented the Internet — a moment whose importance is magnified because it fits with jigsaw precision into an existing template.”

This type of writing follows a pattern common in American journalism today - a pattern in which, for a variety of reasons (none of them legitimate), every criticism of a conservative figure is “balanced” with a criticism of a progressive figure. Ergo, the reference to John Edwards’ expensive hair-do and John Kerry’s unfortunately worded explanation of an otherwise reasonable Senate vote. During the 2004 election cycle another media critic pointed out that George W. Bush could say the sun rises in the west, and John Kerry could say the sun rises in the east, but the newspaper headlines would read “Opinions Differ On Sunrise”.

This brings me to the the real irritating part of Marcus’ column: the Al Gore stab. Al Gore never claimed he “invented the internet”. That simply never happened. You can read all about it here, but the gist is that for years, conservative politicians, pundits and publications have misquoted and outright misled the public to try and make Al Gore seem like a liar.

This all amounts to lazy writing, and a cowardly fear of being accused of “liberal bias”. Republicans know that, in fact, it’s the truth that’s biased against them. They also know that conjuring up the specter of an elite “liberal media”, and repeating the accusation often enough, cements it in the minds of those who are no longer paying attention - no longer paying attention to avoid the regular parade of incompetence, corruption and carnage wrought by people like Vice President Cheney.