The Anchoress

Jay Ambrose has a great piece up that touches on something I’ve always maintained, that the word “incurious” belongs rightly to the press, not the president.

The incurious press never did want to know about John Kerry’s military records…they never did actually want to hear what the Swiftboat Vets had to say…hell, they weren’t even curious enough about Plamegate to ask Joe Wilson a question beyond “so, how is the Bush Neocon Cabal out to get you?” They never were curious enough to ask Valerie Plame nuthin’ at all.

They weren’t curious about Sandy Berger’s pants, or Air America ’s use of public monies, either. They are not interested in the 45,000 boxes of documents which came out of Iraq and which are unearthing so much interesting stuff. They were not especially interested in Juanita Brodderick (imagine how interested they’d have been in her, however, had she shown up on Bush’s watch!). They’re not interested in why Bill Clinton was asked to leave Oxford University as a young man (but Bush’s TANG dentist - he got asked questions!) They have no curiosity about why Hillary Clinton - whose pet issues include education - was not taking part of the Education Consortium which took place in the rotunda of the Capital, on 9/11. Actually the press never seems able to ask Hillary a question that moves beyond, “how’d you get to be so great?”

Truth be told, the press is staggeringly incurious about most things, and what it is interested in - which in the past few years means “screwing Bush,” sorry, but it’s true - it obsesses on.

I’ve watched politics all my life and have never seen these two things:

1) the press pounding one president mercilessly and relentlessly - on any issue, any at all - (I recall reading one idiot who suggested that the post World Cup violence in Europe was Bush’s fault)

2) reporting almost daily on the comings and goings of the past president, and constantly putting the out-of-power cabinet members and advisors before the public for their “analysis” and “opinions.”

I’m quite sure when the Bush years are over, we will not see anyone from Bush’s cabinet invited on Russert’s show, or Stephanopolous’, to critique the next president’s policy. No matter who the next president is, they’ll still be going to Clinton’s people for commentary. It helps, probably, that so many Clintonites have either become “journalists” themselves, or married journalists, or invested heavily in media interests. Lots of things in place to help hoist the next Clinton presidency into place. But I digress.

Ambrose writes:

Back in 1999 during an editorial writers’ conference, I was chatting with a Texas journalist who had gone to the same church as George W. Bush, then running for president for the first time, and pushed her for any insights she might have into the man. Was he as intellectually klutzy as people were making him out to be? Did he have a brain?

He was a reader, she told me. The woman recounted a time Bush had spotted her with a book _ I don’t remember what it was now _ and asked her about it. She recommended it to him, and two weeks later, he told her he had read it and shared a few thoughts with her about it.

As I recall, she provided other testimony of Bush’s search for understanding in the world of books. Because I prize reading as among the most precious pursuits of the human species, I was impressed. Now that the White House has released a list of some of the 60 books Bush has read this year, are any of his most ardent critics similarly impressed? Of course, not. Their assumption all along has been that he never reads anything and now at least one _ Bob Cesca, a blogger, writer and film director _ states flat-out that Bush is lying. [emphasis added- admin]

The truth is that many of the critics who keep telling us that Bush is incurious are themselves incurious, loath to put their favorite asininities at risk through the exercise of open-minded, honest inquiry. [emphasis added - admin] Jonathan Chait of The New Republic argued prior to the list’s release that Bush was too dumb to be president, citing among other things the president’s supposed “disdain for book learnin’.” Had Chait been more inquiring himself _ is he too dumb to write for The New Republic? _ he might have learned that Bush has a thing for books. It was easier to rest his case on some meaningless impressions, sloppy analysis and one-sided evidence.
[...]
I think Bush is in fact serious, and maybe twice as complicated as his detractors grasp, even if he is also a stumble-tongue.

Ambrose is quite right; once a narrative has been constructed, it’s damn near impossible to get the press to deconstruct it - which is ironic when you consider how many slaves to deconstructionism work in the media. On the rare occasions in which they are forced to deconstruct something on…page 13 of section A, rather than page 42 of section C…you see this sort of weird and toothless pudding, which in no way resembles the fevered and morally-outraged musings, rants and outright accusations of the last three years. Thank goodness, the internet means forever. As long as some folks are stuffing their harddrives, we’ll at least be able to compare and contrast the evolutions - or devolutions - of media hype and hysteria.

What bothers me is that, while some in the press seem to understand that their industry is destroying itself, none of them seem capable of turning the ship around. Rather, they plunge forward - the news is NEW, it’s all about Katie! Sorry, the problems destroying American journalism cannot be fixed through cosmetics. Throwing a newer body into a damaged, decrepit and fragile chair will not make the chair stronger or more reliable. And I say this having declared plainly that I would rather see Couric succeed than fail, if by “success” we mean she can restore some credibility to the craft of journalism, not merely that she can raise broadcast ratings in an anemic time-slot.

New wine needs new wine skins. Perhaps the blogs and alternate media are new wine…

I am very, very curious to see what mainstream journalism is going to look like in five years. Sadly, I am not optimistic. And yes, it pains me to write that. As a blogger (I wish I could remember who) once wrote, (I’m paraphrasing) “I did not plan to spend my adulthood having to investigate stories and gather news…but the press stopped doing it.” I’d be much happier - really and truly - writing something else. And - gasp - even getting paid for it.

Update: Check out Carpetbagger’s post, here and get a load of Brian William’s condescending presumption in telling the president “this is a change…”

Sometimes I really wonder how W manages to remain gracious to these folks.

Related:
It’s Really Petty to Restent What a Man Reads
That Moron Bush is Reading my Book?
Anchoress - Outside Voices
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes

Bob pinged back with his thoughts on the incurious Old Media.