Why Double-face loves Michael Jackson

[Thursday, 20 Nov 03] A number of explosions tore through the British consulate in Turkey today, killing scores of people. George W. Bush is in England, surrounded on all sides by enraged British citizens whose massive protests have required nearly every police officer in London to be put on the line of defense.

This is happening in a nation that has been, both in government and among the populace, one of the strongest allies America has ever known. There are a couple of wars happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, neither of which are going very well. A great many soldiers and civilians have died in the last year. Osama bin Laden is still on the loose, and after nearly 750 days, the American people have still been given no explanation for why September 11 happened.

It is 3:16 p.m. on Thursday afternoon as I write this. CNN has been covering, with total exclusivity, a parking lot outside a police station for the last hour. They covered an airplane landing. They covered the same airplane sitting still on the tarmac. They covered the airplane slowly moving into a hangar. All the while, talking head after talking head explored every conceivable facet of the parking lot, the plane, the tarmac, and the hangar, as well as a variety of parallel issues. No stone of data was left unturned.

Why? Michael Jackson is about to surrender to police.

William Rivers Pitt article.

One of the shots on my television an hour ago showed a gaggle of reporters and cameras gathered outside the police station, waiting for Jackson to arrive. The talking head working the microphone at that moment mistakenly called those people "journalists." This is not journalism, and those people are not journalists. This is entertainment television passed off as news of import. This is more poison poured into our national discussion. This is the grand bull moose gold medal winning distraction of all time.

George W. Bush should send Michael Jackson flowers and a thank-you note, and send more flowers to CNN. The Republican Party effected an historic takeover of Congress in 1994, during a time when the only television coverage one could find focused on OJ Simpson. The timing was exquisite.

We're right back, today, to that marvelous chapter in American journalism history.

TV news viewers who think they are getting the hard truth from the mainstream media just forgot Bush exists, forgot the hundreds of thousands of protesters who have dogged his state visit to Britain, forgot the attacks in Iraq, forgot the dead soldiers, forgot September 11, forgot everything except a mutant in a Bronco who lives in a place called Neverland.

They just showed Jackson in handcuffs. The talking heads almost fainted. God bless America.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.