The Anchoress
I know, I know; I am the only blogger in the world, it seems, who is not writing about Anthony Weiner. Mea Culpa — Mondays are my busiest day, and today I didn’t even get to go to Adoration, so you know it was just unmanageably busy.
I didn’t even see the news when it broke! You guys know more than I do.
But according to Ed Driscoll, it was a late-afternoon of awesome political theater!
Watch video here. Pelosi is finally going to look into this.
To my way of thinking, the saddest part of this story is Barbara Walters devolution; this once-respected newswoman nears the end of her distinguished career by playing as ghastly a non-sequitur as I’ve ever heard, saying (in essence) if Sarah Palin ‘can ride around on her bus,’ Weiner Can Stay in Congress.
When Joy Behar, of all people has to defend Sarah Palin from your bizarrely gratuitous swipe, you know you’ve let your hate lead you too far into Whackyland.
Listen (if you can stand the noise of this show) to Walters talking about how she “knows” Weiner and “knows” his wife, who of course works for Hillary Clinton, whom she also knows.
This is the problem with the mainstream media in a nutshell. They “know” the people they’re supposed to be covering, and they consider themselves “friends” of those people. And it has ruined them. As you listen to Walters, all you see is passionate advocacy; not a newswoman concerned with the truth of a story, but a partisan doing everything she can to divert attention from a story she doesn’t like — even to comparing a private citizen on a bus to a sitting congressman having some sort of cyber-engagement in his office — and championing her “friend.”
This has never been a nice story, which is why I haven’t written about it until now. But I still am less interested in Weiner than in how the press reacted to this story. Some were willing to believe him, simply because he said they should. Some seemed like they didn’t want to believe him, but didn’t want to not believe him, even more. The usual partisans tried to blame and smear the usual partisans.
We don’t actually have a genuine press any more.
Thank God for the Internet, says I. I wonder how much longer we’ll be able to traipse its environs freely.
UPDATE I: Instalanche! Thank you Glenn Reynolds!. Much appreciated. And note, Reynolds is typically bright, calling Walters “Collateral Damage.” Heh.
Meanwhile, here is Weiner just lying
UPDATE II:
Obnoxious video
Related:
Katie Couric and the Gravitas Issue (Discusses female newsers)
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