The press Gore is getting is truly fascinating, however. Have you noticed the peculiarly 1999 feel of the press' choice of memes lately? Like the huge 50-source NYT story about the Clintons' sex life earlier this week, or Gore getting skewered over and over again by reporters and pundits:
...one so-called liberal newspaper was busy this week publishing a right-wing attack against Gore over trivial matters like what exactly he did--and where he was--during the summer he turned 15. (I kid you not.) Chris Matthews was inviting guests on his show, and lauding them, for writing Gore "is one slice short of a loaf." PBS' Gwen Ifil was asking one Gore profiler if the former VP doesn't come off as "holier than thou." And MSNBC's Don Imus was ridiculing Gore as "the phoniest bastard on the planet--a horrid human being."
Proponents of the "liberal media" meme never want to talk about the 2000 election and the press' almost thuggish treatment of Al Gore, as outlined in this great Rolling Stone article, because it puts the lie to their story.
The greatest irony of the 2000 election was that Gore was characterized by the media as a chronic liar and exaggerator, yet it was the media who had to lie and exaggerate to make that claim stick. How do you feel about the last 6 years of presidential administration, and have you thanked the New York Times for it?
Update: changed last sentence from "a reporter" to "the New York Times" to reflect the fact that not all reporters were in on Smearfest Y2K (just all the big time ones were).
No comments:
Post a Comment