The Times of London’s Gerard Baker:
Every decade or so the people who control the way we see the world anoint some American politician the Redeemer of a Troubled Planet.
…

The alert among you will have noticed by now that what all these spiritu…

Newsweek, The NY Times, MSNBC portray themselves as “news organizations” but rarely present the news. The facts are even, at times, distorted.

As far as I can recollect, the last time we’ve seen anything like this is in the person of Joseph Goebbels. He presented propaganda as news, advocated the subsuming of individuality to the collective state (note the “inspiring”, “uplifting” verbage of the current media), and he elevated one individual to the status of a “Myth”.

Towards the end of 1941, at the height of Nazi power and domination in Europe, Goebbels claimed the creation of the “Führer myth” as his greatest propaganda achievement. He had some justification for his claim, and . . . the “Hitler myth” [was] an achievement of “image-building” by masters of the new techniques of propaganda. However, it has been rightly pointed out that the “heroic” Hitler image was “as much an image created by the masses as it was imposed on them.” Propaganda was above all effective where it was building upon, not countering, already existing values and mentalities.

Whatever vacuity exists in Obama because of his remarkable lack of achievement in the 50 odd years of his life is counterbalanced by our media’s effort to elevate Obama to the heights of a “savior”. Goebbels would have been proud.

We’ve heard this tune before, haven’t we?

We know next to nothing about Obama other than his associations, his appallingly scant amount of work in the Illinois legislature and the US Senate (he barely bothers to show up), and his two books where race is uttered on every other page.

If the only information we can gather about Obama comes from his adoring fans in the press, Obama’s elevation would be complete and without challenge. As much as I dislike many of the ill effects of the internet upon society, on this score, thank God for the internet.

… and prostrate yourself before the saviour:… it’s fairly clear now that, with the near-certain nomination by the Democrats of Barack Obama everything is in place for the media to indulge in one of the greatest, orgiastic media fiestas of…

“I’m very impressed with the grammatical construction of your sentences,”
(because you always want to start out positive)
“but have you been listening to anything I’ve said throughout these months? Journalism is about facts and a sober presentation of reality. You’re not supposed to fawn and gush over your subject as if you were a child on your first trip to Disneyland. It’s rather pitiful.”

Student shrugs. “Well, I tried.”

“That’s not good enough. There are techniques to be mastered, tones to register, themes to be followed. You must do better, much better.” Teacher pauses. “What magazines do your parents have at home?”

“People.”

“Oh, my God.”

“Entertainment Weekly.”

“Anything else? Any others?”

“No, that’s it.”

A sigh. “Well, aside from a regrettable lack of self-direction, that certainly does explain things. Here… let me provide you with some better examples.” The teacher goes to the shelves and rummages through stacks of magazines and newspapers. “Hmmm… The NY Times. My goodness, how did I ever let these stick around? … hmmm… here we go, some Time and Newsweek - er, no, they are too recent, they’re less than twenty years old! I’ve got it. Try these. The Wall Street Journal.”

This post will grow as the day goes on. Please don’t forget to check back later. Worth knowing about today: Silver Star Being Used as Feminist Symbol How Iran Is Killing U.S. Troops in Iraq Maliki offers amnesty — to…

(retch)