A remarkable news report: In the February 20 New York Post, Susan Edelman wrote this long report about “New York’s school testing con”—the recent statewide testing scandal which all polite journalists have agreed to ignore. (As best we can tell, the Washington Post has never even reported that this massive scandal occurred.)
Edelman’s report is much more direct than the mush-piece the New York Times published last fall. Just a guess: In such precincts—all through the “liberal” world—most good people know they must cover for Gotham’s billionaire mayor.
In the future, we plan to review Edelman’s report in detail. For today, just click here.
Novelizing Christie and Ryan/And a critique disappears: Again and again, the news is a novel—a novelized story journalistic elites agree to tell.
In Saturday’s Washington Post, Matt Miller described the rise of a hot new novel—and he advanced a novella himself.
The hot new novel Miller described involves Republican truth-tellers. The Washington press has agreed to pretend that Governor Christie is such a person, Miller noted. Miller described the way the corps “swooned” over Christie’s speech in DC last week. In that speech, Christie made blatantly obvious observations, like many others before him:
MILLER (2/26/11): Christie merely said that Social Security's retirement age would have to be raised and Medicare would need to be tweaked lest it bankrupt us—things that less sexy pols, such as Democrats Dick Durbin and Mark Warner, have noted without anyone fainting in admiration.
Huh! Durbin and Warner have said the same thing! (Along with a wide range of other pols.) But when Christie says it, he’s a “truth-teller.” Or so the Group Novel goes.
(As Miller notes, Christie didn’t say that higher taxes will be needed to bring future deficits under control—so where was his truth-telling there?)
According to Miller, a second novel is being crafted about Rep. Ryan. (Paul Krugman has often described this tale.) In this novel, Ryan is cast as a bold budget hawk. Miller said that’s nonsense too:
MILLER: Thanks to House budget chief Paul Ryan, it's possible to measure the size of this fraud. And it's colossal. As can never be said often enough, Ryan is absurdly hailed as a fiscal "conservative" for a "roadmap" that doesn't balance the budget until the 2060s and that adds an unthinkable $62 trillion to the national debt between now and then. How can this be the case when Ryan puts forward trims for Social Security and Medicare so "bold" that most Republicans wouldn't dream of supporting them? Because Ryan also pretends we can keep federal taxes at their recent historic levels of 19 percent of gross domestic product as the boomers age.
No can do. The math doesn't work. Ryan's endless red ink proves this.
Weird! Accepted Group Novels are being written about these well-known public figures. They’re being lionized as truth-tellers, budget hawks, even though they’re telling “half-truths, at best”—even though they’re involved in a “fraud.” But then, this is a very familiar process within the Washington press. Indeed: Back in December 1997, Miller loudly complained when his colleagues began to fashion a novel about Vice President Gore—a novel in which Gore was cast as a feckless liar, just like Bill Clinton. Miller noted how foolish this nascent claim was—but his colleagues kicked him down the stairs. (Click here, then search on “Miller.”)
They kept typing their novel for three more years. George Bush ended up in the White House.
(In March 2000, Post ombudsman E. R. Shipp devoted a column to this novel; she noted the dishonest way the Post was “typecasting” Gore. Her criticism was right on point—and her observation was thrown in the trash, just like Miller’s before it.)
In 1997, Miller noted the start of a punishing novel. Fourteen years later, he marvels at the rise of a new set of Standard Group Tales. But wouldn’t you know it! Even as Miller rolls his eyes at the new novel, he seems to contribute to a reigning novella!
Within the guild, it’s Hard Pundit Law; you must be kind to other made men. Here’s how Miller treated the one major journalist he felt forced to criticize:
MILLER: No can do. The math doesn't work. Ryan's endless red ink proves this. Yet the Ryan Ruse has been such a success that even the normally unblinkered Charles Krauthammer fell prey to it in his column Friday,citing Ryan as part of “a new generation of Republicans” who have looked at the debt and “are putting the question to the nation: Are we a serious people?” Sarah palin, too, has endorsed a plan that won’t balance the budget until her daughter Bristol is in her 70s!
Does Miller really believe that Charles is “normally unblinkered?” Forgive us if we wonder. But then too, Miller seemed to feel that guild regulations required him to say something nice about half-truth-telling Christie:
MILLER: Now, don't get me wrong. I find Christie's brash style refreshing. But we're so accustomed to political flimflam that, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan might have put it, we're defining truth-telling down. For Christie to be rhapsodized for saying we need to reform entitlements without adding that federal taxes will have to rise as America ages makes him a half-truth-teller at best.
And half-truths are all we have from the GOP so far.
Christie is telling a half-truth—“at best.” As Miller knows, this is the major way Big Pols deceive us rubes. Beyond that, Miller even seems to say that Christie’s involved in “political flimflam”—in a “fraud.” Yet Miller somehow found himself saying that he “finds Christie's brash style refreshing.”
Is that what Miller really thinks? Forgive us if we’re puzzled.
Shouldn’t a serious person be angry at someone who’s telling a half-truth “at best?” Who’s involved in “political flimflam”—a “fraud?” It isn’t permitted within the club! And just in case you doubt these things:
Go ahead—scan Miller’s column on line. The part about Charles has been wiped away. Somehow, the heresy got into print. On-line, it has been disappeared.
