Pravda and Xinhua have never been anything more than vulgar organs of the regime, but the American media is descending into savagery while leaving behind a legacy of civilization. Like a citizen turned cannibal, it still has some of the cultural trappings of its past, but it's discarding them as quickly as Newsweek can photoshop new covers.
Sad comments on the erstwhile protectors of 1st Amendment Freedom, coupled with the likes of Elmer Gantry. For the alternative to be worse, it would have to be Putin or Ahmadinejad; not Romney. But there's no other available theme. Not for an incumbent who has nothing positive to show for his time in office, except giving the go-ahead to kill a wanted terrorist, while blowing the war in Afghanistan. Obama's original platform of change won't work anymore. Not "Change We Can Believe In", not "Safe, Sustainable Change" and not, "Can You Spare Some Change for My Campaign."
This one is in the top tier of Greenfield’s output, IMO.
The problem with propagandists is that they get so taken in by their own illusion of power, that they stop noticing when no one is paying attention to them. Barely a quarter of the country digested and accepted the swill that the media had poured out over it in 07 and 08. What the public noticed was that there seemed to be a consensus that the One was the one. They didn't notice it by reading every screed that the American heirs to Goebbels were scribbling up at Time and the New York Times. Like a television that is on in the room, while you're vacuuming or doing laundry, they noticed it mainly as background noise in their lives.
Very, very, very well written. Like VDH on testosterone and whiskey.