I turned on CNN and there was Wolf Blitzer, breathlessly (and I mean that literally) reporting the TigerBeat conspiracy theory while showing a rather ambiguous video over and over again with the chiron “CLINTON STUMBLES” and “BREAKING NEWS.” And this:
Hillary Clinton’s health just became a real issue in the presidential campaign
Chris Cillizza / Washington PostHillary Clinton falling ill Sunday morning at a memorial service on the 15th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks will catapult questions about her health from the ranks of conservative conspiracy theory to perhaps …
Notice that the first sentence of this scrofulous story is not a news lede, but, rather, a soothsayer lead. This NOT journalism “will catapult the propaganda.”
And this is how c0nspiracy theories — no matter how dubious, no matter how corrupt, no matter how questionable — are walked into the mainstream press by the Rightie blogosmear.™
And it is a fundamental betrayal of the press corpse’s social contract with their consumers.
It is Nine-lebbin®, our most sacred day for beating our chests about American unity and identity, even as our GOP colleagues in this republic use it in the most shamefully partisan and treasonous of manners. There SHOULD be enough on the table of toxicity for even the most avid of poison-eaters. But no.
You see, the press has been resisting the clearly partisan and obviously propagandistic “conspiracy” theory that Hillary Clinton is a medical disaster, ready to collapse at any time from a variety of maladies that such medical stalwarts as Jim “Magic Eyes” Hoft and Glenn “Bat Guano Addled” Beck have diagnosed from afar without the hindrance of any medical knowledge or, in fact, any actual knowledge whatsoever.
And the mainstream press has, rightly, pooh-poohed this transparent nonsense.
But the SECOND that this “becoming ill at an event” appeared, without the slightest sound of grinding gears, without a moment’s sober reflection and without the slightest scintilla of journalistic “integrity” or “professionalism,” the Mainstream press JUMPS into the conspiracy theory with both feet.
The sheer orgasmic breathlessness of Wolf Blitzer on this morning’s coverage ought to remind CNN that even Larry King heard the call of incipient old age, and that it’s far past time that Wolf be put out to pasture to breed new talking heads for future Nielson Racing Seasons.
Cillizza’s lede in the Washington Post tells it all: we reject the intentional fabulism of a campaign desperate for ANY distracting issues until a single event and then WE EMBRACE IT ALL — with the slick proviso that SOMEONE else is actually going to embrace it, not me.
The least credible denial since that incident with St. Peter and the crowing cock.
And what this means is telling: no matter how inured the “professionals” of the press are to transparent lies and fake medical libels, they don’t actually give a damn, don’t actually have any critical skills and breathlessly repeat ANY rumor, no matter how unfounded, like stoned middle-schoolers cutting class in the second floor bathroom.
The difference?
The stoned middle-schoolers KNOW they’re betraying their trust.
There is no logical reason to have jumped straight from covering an event on the order of George H.W. Bush puking in the Japanese Prime Minister’s lap to full on Glenn Beck/Jim Hoft conspiracy paranoia. There is no rational defense of this anti-rational thinking and reporting.
But there you have it: the Psy-Ops serpents of the GOP have, once again, placed a completely bogus story smack into the middle of mainstream reporting, and all it took was the merest scintilla of the slightest whiff of a “medical crisis” for these mindless, ravening and rabid hyenas to form into a pack and go charging straight up BS Mountain.
And to hell with remembering Nine-lebbin®.
I mean, who could possibly give a damn about THAT?
Oh, and good work with the BREAKING NEWS chirons and the other appurtenances that pretend that you’re legimate reporters covering factual news.
And good work on “catapulting the propaganda” all the while pretending to NOT be operating the levers for the shot.
At least with the peddlers of the fake conspiracy theories, we know their motives and their intent. With the Press Corpse, there is no such direct link: are they utterly incompetent or are they collaborators?
Enquiring minds want to know.
Courage.
Update: Watch Wolf Blitzer show Hillary Clinton’s stumble 40 times in 10 minutes. (via Raw Story)
The New York Times reports that Mrs. Clinton is being treated for pneumonia. Thus making a thousand talking heads pretend they didn’t blather the blather they’d blathered earlier in the same news cycle.
Cross-posted from his vorpal sword.
A writer, published author, novelist, literary critic and political observer for a quarter of a quarter-century more than a quarter-century, Hart Williams has lived in the American West for his entire life. Having grown up in Wyoming, Kansas and New Mexico, a survivor of Texas and a veteran of Hollywood, Mr. Williams currently lives in Oregon, along with an astonishing amount of pollen. He has a lively blog, His Vorpal Sword (no spaces) dot com.