Blogversation part III
Rotten and Evan seem to have misunderstood what I was getting at when I wrote that:
Everyone in Monroe County who follows politics knows that Steve Minarik runs everything at the county level, but to read the D&C you’d hardly know he exists.
My issue here is that the D&C, in its endorsements, treats Republican candidates for county office as if they were independent agents. They write things like “Joe Shmo Republican did a great job overseeing garbage collection in Parma and he’ll be a strong voice for voters in the county lej.” Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say “Joe Shmo Republican did a great job overseeing garbage collection in Parma and he’ll do exactly what he’s told to do in the county lej, the same as all the other Republicans there do”? And I don’t mean to single out Republicans (though in the county lej it isn’t clear what a Democratic candidate will do in general). In the case of Congress, it would be fair to write that Louise Slaughter and Dan Maffei will generally vote with their party’s leadership in the House (Louise is part of the Democratic leadership in the House). And one could the same of Reynolds, Walsh, and Kuhl, all of whom voted overwhelmingly with the rest of the Republican caucus in the 109th Congress. (To be completely fair, I’m leaving more mavericky candidates, like Eric Massa, or Amo Houghton, or Sherry Boehlert, out of this.)
Why can’t the papers just write this? Why can’t they say that candidates will mostly just do what their leaders tell them to do? It’s the truth — why can’t it be written? I realize that there seems to be some rule against this — even in editorials — but what does it say about modern journalism that one of its rules is that you can’t tell readers the truth?
One of the great staples of American movie drama is the character who runs afoul of authority in his obsessive quest for the truth. This character is often a cop (think Philip Marlowe, Jake Gittes, or Jimmy McNulty), though he can also be a CIA agent or some kind of whistle-blower. It seems to me that bloggers now play this kind of role. We’re not bound by the strange rules that prevent many journalists from seeking and speaking the truth. As a result, we’re generally treated as cranks and trouble-makers, in the same way that the whistle-blowers and renegade cops are in these movies.
This comparison has its flaws. Sipping martinis at Musso’s with Faye Dunaway (or even downing Heinies with Bunk down by the water) is of course infinitely more romantic than sitting in front of a computer screen banging out a post about campaign reform. So perhaps another comparison is in order. In Shakespeare’s King Lear — and elsewhere — the “fool” or jester is often the only person who dares to speak the truth to the king. The fact that the jester is powerless, and that he often speaks in a joking manner, allows him a freedom of expression not available to others. I sometimes wonder if blogs and other forms of nontraditional journalism function in the same way.
Modern Washington has much in common with the courts of 17th and 18th century French Kings. Media elites unapologetically represent the interests of entrenched power. Speaking the truth is, as Michael Kinsley famously put it, the very definition of a gaffe. It’s telling that millions of Americans have more faith in the news they hear from comedians John Stewart and Stephen Colbert than the news they hear from CNN and NBC.
Related posts:
if you can make that point to them it would be great. the average citizen has no idea of his influence and letting the light in on that would do more for good government than any reform.
[...] are we just more trusting by nature?ÂÂ Could it be that the Internet is more likely to be truthful (see Exile’s post below) and the truth hurts Republicans?ÂÂ Nah, that couldn’t be it.ÂÂ Maggie Brooks and pals love [...]
Is the Blogversation over?
I’ll do one more post on it.