--BILL CLINTON, MESSIAH. Second Coming
Politicos and reporters are not rocket scientists . . . Professions tend to be self-selected, intellectually homogeneous subgroups of Homo sapiens. Great intellects (especially these days) do not generally gravitate towards careers in the media or politics. Mediocre, power-obsessed types with poor self-images do. Thus, clinton mediocrity goes undetected primarily because of media mediocrity. ("Mediocrity" and "media" don't come from the same Latin root (medius) for no reason.) Insofar as the clintons are concerned, the media confuse form with substance, smoothness with coherence, data-spewing with ratiocination, pre-programmed recitation with real-time analysis, an idiosyncratic degeneracy with creativity.
New Republic | 9/27/05 | Michael Crowley
Politicos and reporters are not rocket scientists . . . |
The other day, I heard a possible explanation for this disturbing "stupidity" artifact. The recent contention that journalists become journalists out of a sense of patriotism sparked a locking of heads amongst talking heads, and one of them, I don't recall which--talking heads are as changeable and as interchangeable to me as a Mister Potatohead's--confessed that journalists become journalist because journalism is perhaps the only major in college that doesn't require math....
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