Last night we were watching Keith Olbermann, and I couldn't believe how much he and, I think, Dana Milbank were praising the heck out of Tony Snow. Granted, the guy has cancer, and moral people wouldn't wish that on their worst enemy -- but they weren't treating this formerly FOX-based sycophantic enabler as their worst enemy, but as a colleague. From everything I've seen, Snow has been the opposite of an actual journalist, he was a Bush admin apologist long before they hired him to work the other side of the same aisle, but Olbermann couldn't have been sweeter to the guy.
"What did you expect?" Robin said. They're in the same profession. As good and insightful as Olbermann can be, this is going to be one of his blinders. He's not going to speak ill of someone he considers a professional peer.
This is the essence of the Great Divide that separates the actual elites from the rest of us. The people who make millions of dollars performing on TV, whether it be as a keen political observer who occasionally speaks truth to power or a down-home-boy professional athlete -- they're not us any more, if they ever were. They've graduated to a different world to go with their increased income. Their social life consists of other millionaires, with whom they will always have more in common than they do with folks who, for instance, might share their overall political views. That's where their loyalties lie first and foremost. And that probably goes double or triple for politicians.
That's worth remembering on Labor Day, a day initially set aside to honor people who actually produce goods and services rather than those who oversee and reap the rewards off others' toil. Heck, it's worth remembering all year 'round, as we train a skeptical eye and ear on everything that emerges from the mouths of millionaires.
"What did you expect?" Robin said. They're in the same profession. As good and insightful as Olbermann can be, this is going to be one of his blinders. He's not going to speak ill of someone he considers a professional peer.
This is the essence of the Great Divide that separates the actual elites from the rest of us. The people who make millions of dollars performing on TV, whether it be as a keen political observer who occasionally speaks truth to power or a down-home-boy professional athlete -- they're not us any more, if they ever were. They've graduated to a different world to go with their increased income. Their social life consists of other millionaires, with whom they will always have more in common than they do with folks who, for instance, might share their overall political views. That's where their loyalties lie first and foremost. And that probably goes double or triple for politicians.
That's worth remembering on Labor Day, a day initially set aside to honor people who actually produce goods and services rather than those who oversee and reap the rewards off others' toil. Heck, it's worth remembering all year 'round, as we train a skeptical eye and ear on everything that emerges from the mouths of millionaires.
0 comments:
Post a Comment