Oct 6, 2005

Why do all the Stupid Ones Speak Up?

I originally intended for this post to be about liberal celebrities and why so many of them fall into that category. However, I thought it might be more pertinent to talk about why it's always the boorish stupid ones who have the audacity to speak out.

First of all, let me say that this is not a first amendment thing. If an aging, coked-out movie star wants the American people to know that he thinks George Bush blows, so be it. I think he does too. But I don't reach quite the audience that they do.

But that's not my argument.

These guys make their money because they can cry on cue or stop moaning when the director yells, "cut!" They're not political analysts. I'd almost say they're barely political. Most of them just want to be seen doing something socially relevant so they can feel better about owning a private island in the shape of a mango. It happens.

It's not just the rich ones with consciences, either. It's the guy who has read a New York Times article and wants to show off that he can discern words on a page and then spit it back out on the Today Show or Malcom in the Middle.

You get the idea.

But then again, I don't think that most political pundits really know what they're talking about either, so my argument doesn't hold much water.

Just one guy behaving like an ass on CNN because he has a party affiliation would be all right, but that's not the way it works. It has to be two diametrically opposed forces in the political arena screaming at each other over nothing. I'm not saying people shouldn't have party affiliations or that they shouldn't feel very strongly about the issue.

The media has it all wrong.

Not everything is fair and not everything has two sides, but that's just the way you're supposed to believe it. Some issues need only one side because there are facts involved. Getting a quote from both sides does not absolve the facts in the matter. That's just lazy, shoddy, dare I say ignorant, journalism. If a certain someone outed a CIA operative on purpose to exact revenge on that person's husband, there is no other side. The guy deserves to go to jail. End of point. It's treason. That's all. Oh, and so is war profiteering. Harry S. Truman said that.

The moral of the story is that there are facts and there are idiots and there are idiots who just sit on their computers and complain about the facts. Adieu.

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