Sanctimony thy name is MSM

A friend of mine, an angelic-looking, harp-plinking Benedictine Nun who is, albeit cloistered, still quite the voracious consumer of news, is writing with some scorn about the absurdity of the mainstream press focusing on President Bush’s quasi-admission (via the Wead tapes) that he’d smoked pot.

Says Sr. Mary Cyberspace, OSB:
I’m laughing about the big brou-haha in the MSM about tapes and W possibly smoking a few when younger. More than anything else this is so pathetic. If he didn’t try the stuff he would’ve been completely absurd and abnormal in our generation. Worry about the guys that never did what everyone else did. They become santimonious snobs in mid-life. Give me a normal guy who found Jesus any day.

Amen, sister! I love monastics. They cut to the chase with beautifully direct simplicity and a minimum of b.s.

I like what another friend sent me, too: What happened before Jesus, stays with Jesus. :-) Again, amen!

I can’t help but notice that while members of the press relish putting any moment of another human being’s life under a microscope and digging as deeply as they like, ad nauseum, they generally keep their own private lives not just private but almost maniacally secretive.

If the foibles and fancies of our mistake-prone youthful years are fair game, then let’s add some grist to the mill. I want to know when Katie Couric lost her virginity!

That’s none of my business you say? But…why? She’s a public person! She frowns her little brows together and reports that Bush may have smoked pot! Had she possibly been smoking a little weed back when she gave it up?

Did Matt Lauer have a drink or two in high school or college? Did Dan Rather ever try pot? Did he do LSD? What about Walter Cronkite! Did he do the cha-cha in the 1950’s while three sheets to the wind?

What about Helen Thomas! I want to know everything she has ever smoked, drank, snorted, shot or rubbed into her belly. Bring me the high-school experiences of David Gregory and Terry Moran – did they smoke pot? Did they do more?

It’s an incredibly STUPID question to put to nearly any baby boomer, but if the question is good enough to ask the president, it’s good enough to ask anyone who wants to be president. How come no one EVER asks Hillary Clinton if she smoked pot? Have you SEEN the pictures of her at college? She looked like she was aping Janis Joplin via Gloria Steinem. No WAY she didn’t bong-a-long.

What about Al Sharpton? Come on, LOOK AT HIM! You know that someone, somewhere had tape of him taking a hit from a water pipe and shouting, “Hey! I feel good,” and doing a little James Brown shimmy on the side!

What about John Kerry? Did he have to answer that question? I have a feeling I know all about how he got that magic hat, and it’s spelled M-U-S-H-R-O-O-M-S.

It doesn’t matter. But if it matters to the press, then I say they should answer the same damn questions. Are we really going to believe that some of the writers who work for the oh-so-cool-oh-so-hip-oh-so-on-top-of-every-trend NY Times are not “holding” in their desks, even as they worry this question over Bush? Maureen Dowd, honey, I’m looking at you! Put that gin-filled Lydia Pinkham bottle away and pay attention!

What hypocrisy this is.

Does anyone know if Barbara Walters even has children? If she does, they’ve certainly been spared any of the sort of unfair scrutiny that the children of politicians are subjected to. Katie Couric has daughters? I wonder if she’d like one of them to be “outed” by a Democrat who finds it politically expedient (I’d say by a Republican, but Republicans as a rule don’t DO that. Dems do.) I wonder if she’d like one of them, a little gassed at a college party, to be all over the front page about it, as with Jenna Bush?

Such a story about the child of a member of the press would never see the light of day.

And it shouldn’t.

When Chelsea Clinton was at Stanford it was a fairly regular occurance for her to end up at the student medical facility because she’d overimbibed. You never read it, not once, not “spelled out.”

And you shouldn’t have.

But, of course, there is that double standard. The members of the press and their children are spared unfair scrutiny. The children of politicians the press supports are spared that scrutiny as well. (You could google your little heart out and you’d never find out about the drunk driving situations of TWO of Al Gore’s kids.)

So…clearly…the press CAN restrain itself from reporting on the sins of some, but not the sins of others. How selective.

And this nonsense about President Bush possibly smoking pot…sister Mary Cyberspace, OSB, is correct. It’s absurd. It’s playacting. It’s theatrical sanctimony being performed by people who would do anything they possibly could to keep from having their own lives examined.

Sigh. T’was ever thus. But it’s tiring, ain’t it?