Bourbons of the Press,Believed by But 15%,Straggle on in Defeat

THE NEW YORK SUN ^ | 01/24/2017 | CONRAD BLACK

[Simon Foxx]

It was a brilliant inauguration, and the continued scrapping and strafing between the administration and the bedraggled, sodden mass of the press continues the execution of a new demarcation of power in the federal government that will prove benign. This week’s issues themselves are not important; what is at issue is a contest between the attitudes of the press and the tactics of the administration...

[DrPretorius]

“Add Victor Davis Hanson to your list.”

This is bad advice. VDH is a cuckservative, like all his other good buddies at National Review. We all should have learned this past election that knowledge of classical history and academic erudition doesn’t generate sound political judgment.

[Dr. Sivana]

Your post as Black might edit it.

I was writing in an informal, colloquial manner. Stet

[Former Proud Canadian]

Doctor, you don't have to swallow EVERYTHING someone writes. VDH has insight into the changing rural California scene you cannot read anywhere else. I know nothing about the Peloponnesian wars and VDH knows everything.

The vast majority of pundits, commentators and essayists were way behind the curve (us, Rush, Savage, Hannity, etc.) concerning the malevolence of the previous president. VDH, like many of us, suffers from normalcy bias and could not find a motive for the previous president's actions. His heart is in the right place and his pen is outstanding.

[TrueFact]

Yes, thanks for posting this!

[Buttons12]

Not critiquing you, Doc, just highlighting Black’s peculiar style.

[all the best]

Thanks. Good start to my day.

[LS]

This is almost exactly what I wrote 3 days ago here.

[Balding_Eagle]

BTTT

[bert]

” A man that buys ink by the barrel should not argue with a president having a Twitter account”

[Rummyfan]

VDH is a cuckservative...

Sorry, but VDH is a national treasure who is a classical scholar of the old school and I read everything he writes.

[Montaignes Cat]

Ever since the nativity of the Fourth Estate, the press has believed itself to be the Incarnation. There is a good Oscar Wilde quotation on this, which I found at wikipedia:

In old days men had the rack. Now they have the Press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralizing. Somebody — was it Burke? — called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time no doubt. But at the present moment it is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism.

[The Westerner]

Lovely nod to Oscar Wilde who was also torn to shreds by the winds of the prevailing zeitgeist.