NO CODDLING, PLEASE
Don Wycliff wants to know: "Why is the Democrat-loving, Republican-hating, pond scum-swilling, lower-than-the-rug-on-the-floor, biased, liberal [curl upper lip when pronouncing] press protecting George W. Bush?" Good question. It's bugged me for a long time, too.
To put it another way, Wycliff has an interesting take today in the Chicago Tribune on how "an inarticulate president" is saved from himself by professional journalists who translate "Bushspeak" for their readers. (Thank you for the link, Romenesko.)
Reporters, he writes, are "trained to seek meaning and the meaningful" and so focus on winnowing the sublime from the ridiculous in "any utterance by the president." Those who cover him, therefore, have routinely "overlooked the mangled syntax, penetrated the rhetorical fog and extracted some usable lines from the dross and manufactured stories that had the president sounding, if not quite statesmanlike, then at least intelligible."
The why of it is more complicated, however. Wycliff writes: "Ideally, we would have a president so articulate that we would never be in doubt as to what he said." Since that's not the case, "this confronts us with the question whether our purpose is to transmit to readers what the president means when he speaks out or to simply relate what he says. I have always felt that transmitting meaning is paramount."
There we disagree. Reporters shouldn't be translating what the little fucker says into what he means or what they think he means. If they want to hold his hand, let them join his staff.
Postscript: If you want to see the guy at his most inarticulate, just go to CNN.com and click the video link (on the right) next to the headline Bush: 'We answered all' 9/11 panel questions. It's absolutely hilarious.
This just in: "I'm laughing out loud at Wednesday's blog," Straight Up reader Joan Daniels writes. "By the way, during his what-was-it 3rd prime-time press conference in almost four years a couple of weeks ago, updating us on the current situation in Iraq, his inarticulate comments were unbelievable as usual. As a matter of fact, his command of the English language actually seemed to have further deteriorated, if that's possible. There were so many misstatements to choose from. ...
"How can he be the President? Doesn't his inability to utter an intelligent sentence concern anyone, even if in favor of his policies? Isn't he the Leader of the Free World? How about his staff? Are they sitting in their seats grimacing as he speaks? I'm embarrassed that he's my President!"
Categories:
Sites to See
Air America Radio
AmericaBlog
American Leftist
Andante
Antiwar.com
ArkivMusic.com
Articulate
Arts & Letters Daily
because they are dead
Bill Reed
Blogcritics
Booknotes
Bright Lights Film Journal
Buck Fush
C-SPAN
Center for Cooperative Research
Clive James
Consortium News
Cost of War in Iraq
Council on Foreign Relations
Crooks and Liars
TheCuttingFloor
The Daily Howler
David E's Fablog
Democracy Now!
Devil Ducky
Doug Ireland
Editor's Cut
Ehrensteinland
Eschaton
Henry Kisor
The Huffington Post
Inter Press Service News Agency
International Relations Center
Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
Jacketmagazine
James Wolcott
Jan Herman (Literary) Archive
Krugman's Blog:
Conscience of a Liberal
Lannan Foundation
Life During Wartime
Low Culture
Metacritic
Museum of Television & Radio
Nat. Arts Journalism Program
National Security Archive
Noam Chomsky
NO!art
Onion Radio News
The Overgrown Path
Open City
Rain Taxi
The Raw Story
RealityStudio.org
The Reeler
Rhizome
Rwanda Project
Seeing Black
Studs Terkel
Summit Journal
TalkLeft
The Theater Times (Cris Gross)
The 3rd Page
ThugLit: Writing About Wrongs
Times Square Cam
The Tin Man
Truthdig
t r u t h o u t
Wading in the Velvet Sea
Walking Man
Wikigate
Wikipedia, free encyclopedia
Wm. Osborne & Abbie Conant
World O'Crap Man
AJ Blogs
AJBlogCentral | rssculture
Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture
rock culture approximately
Rebuilding Gulf Culture after Katrina
Douglas McLennan's blog
Art from the American Outback
John Rockwell on the arts
Jan Herman - arts, media & culture with 'tude
dance
Apollinaire Scherr talks about dance
Tobi Tobias on dance et al...
media
Jeff Weinstein's Cultural Mixology
Martha Bayles on Film...
music
Greg Sandow performs a book-in-progress
Howard Mandel's freelance Urban Improvisation
Focus on New Orleans. Jazz and Other Sounds
Exploring Orchestras w/ Henry Fogel
Kyle Gann on music after the fact
Doug Ramsey on Jazz and other matters...
Greg Sandow on the future of Classical Music
Norman Lebrecht on Shifting Sound Worlds
publishing
Jerome Weeks on Books
Scott McLemee on books, ideas & trash-culture ephemera
theatre
Elizabeth Zimmer on time-based art forms
visual
Public Art, Public Space
John Perreault's art diary
Lee Rosenbaum's Cultural Commentary
Tyler Green's modern & contemporary art blog
