ABC's "Politically Incorrect" doesn't specialize in either comedy or current events, but rather strives to balance the two. Once upon a time that mix worked. These days, however, the resulting salad is usually pretty bland, and it becomes unpalatable on those too-frequent occasions when "PI" host Bill Maher adds to it his special, incredibly tasteless dressing. No late-night comedian is as likely to offend, even outrage, as is Maher. A host who once apologized for an outrage, and very much needed to, was CBS's Craig Kilborn, who issued his mea culpa last August, more than a week after his program... continue reading
You could call it a forgotten ending to a forgotten story. On March 22, a jury in Bentonville, Arkansas convicted 23-year-old Joshua Brown of first-degree murder in the death of 13-year-old Jesse Dirkhising. On September 26, 1999, Brown and his lover, Davis Don Carpenter, 39, bound, gagged, and drugged the skinny, long-haired boy and raped him with objects until he died of "positional asphyxiation." Let the record show this is a story the national press has deliberately chosen to spike. The national media's ongoing, see-no-evil campaign of calculated ignorance on the Dirkhising story stands in stark contrast to both its... continue reading
Is big money ruining politics? Do we have a political debate strangled by special interests? Here's one vision of how major corporations are blatantly promoting their own selfish agenda, doling out massive resources to back a politician who will carry their water. The industry is the national media. The water-carrying pol is John McCain. Unquestionably, there is a problem with campaign financing, and we ought not to pretend there isn't. The rise of sneaky, undisclosed soft money into campaigns is corrupting. But the solution is more disclosure and more open participation. For example, take the way journalists accept honoraria to... continue reading
As Bill Clinton's richly deserved place in Bartlett's is being prepared in all its didn't-inhale, is-is, and didn't-do-that-woman-Miss-Lewinsky glory, perhaps the quote-keepers ought to be considering a page or two for another major American public figure. How the schoolchildren of tomorrow would enjoy taking time out from Shakespeare, Mencken, and Mark Twain, so they could try to divine the meaning of those innumerable verbal oddities from CBS anchorman Dan Rather. Rather's days at the top of the media food chain are probably numbered, but unlike most journalists, he will leave behind a legacy. We are going to miss the "Ratherism,"... continue reading
On March 5, 15-year-old Charles Andrew Williams opened fire on classmates at his Santee, Calif. high school, killing two and wounding thirteen. It is, perhaps, a morbid reflection, but we all knew there would be another school shooting. We also knew that sooner or later someone would find a link between it and the entertainment industry. In the case of Andy Williams, the link has been found. During a "Dateline NBC" interview, one of the boy's friends said that a song by the rock band Linkin Park inspired Williams to commit the murders. Linkin Park's lyrics include, "Everything you say/Takes... continue reading
You can love him. You can hate him. It really doesn't matter. He's been in first place, and in third place. Dan Rather has reigned two entire decades in the anchor chair of the "CBS Evening News." Think of how long Rather's been delivering the nightly updates in his strange, guess-when-I-will-crack demeanor. When he took the reins from Walter Cronkite in March 1981, Leonid Brezhnev still commanded a fearsome Soviet Union. Margaret Thatcher was still a greenhorn. Ronald Reagan was a few weeks away from an unfortunate encounter with John Hinckley. Inflation raged, and Democrats were predicting that Reagan's proposed... continue reading
The great ongoing American political struggle has been, and probably always will be, between supporters of expansive federal power and those who believe that when government action is necessary, it should, with rare exceptions, be limited and localized. These days, an analogous struggle is developing in the television industry, with major-network-affiliated stations playing the part of local government, and the major networks the role of the feds. Last week, the stations, which think the networks have been shoving them around, pushed back. On March 8, the Network Affiliated Stations Alliance (the other NASA), which represents more than 600 TV outlets,... continue reading
This much is clear about the $1.6 trillion tax cut proposed by President Bush: He means it. Unlike his predecessor, who delivered the largest tax hike in history after promising a tax cut on the campaign trail, and unlike his father who broke his read-my-lips pledge, Bush championed a $1.6 trillion tax cut while campaigning and is (at least for now) refusing to budge an inch from that promise. It may explain why some in the news media have gone thoroughly hysterical to the point of outright dishonesty in their reporting, so desperate are they to see his plan defeated... continue reading
When capitalist-bashing academics do battle with some of the worst corporate cultural polluters in America, for which side should a conservative root? This conservative, after watching that very clash take place within "The Merchants of Cool," the latest installment of PBS's "Frontline" series, wound up unenthusiastically backing the corporate cultural polluters - mostly because, to use sportscasting jargon, they didn't so much win the game as the professors lost it. Much of the hour-long program dealt with the minutiae of market research into today's 32 million U.S. teens, whose spending power exceeds $150 billion. The five major youth-culture media conglomerates... continue reading
It's a crazy world we live in, isn't it? The Clintons have participated in endless acts of corruption, from crooked land deals to miraculous hundred-thousand dollar cattle future bonanzas. They spent eight long years lying about travel agents they didn't fire, billing records they couldn't find but were in their bedroom, staff they couldn't explain having been hired, FBI files they didn't know why they had, women with whom he'd had affairs. For good measure, both Clintons lied under oath. And Bill Clinton most probably raped a woman. Now we've seen a curtain call worthy of the Clinton legacy. They... continue reading