The road to oblivion

Channel-hopping on election night, you couldn’t help but notice the similar expressions on the faces of so many of the anchors, or correspondents, or whatever the networks now call their professional spokesmodelreaderpersons. From Katie Couric to Diane Sawyer, they were all beaming like cats who had just swallowed the canary. They could hardly contain their joy as they ballyhooed the “historic” election of Barack Obama.

That’s fine, except that, so far as I can determine, these people still identify their profession as “journalist,” that group of ink-stained reprobates on whom the public relies for a certain level of objectivity — even cynicism, when appropriate — when probing and relaying the fatuous mouthings of the political class.

But only when those in power try to stand in the path of the great and noble rush to socialism, of course. Think “Saturday Night Live” will be making fun of Barack and Michelle next week? Next month? Oh, please. Based on past performance, 18 months from now they’ll still be milking their parodies of John McCain, George Bush, and Sarah Palin, like octogenarian burlesque performers trying to get the little dogs in the faded tutus to jump through the hoops one more time.

It was the job of this gang to challenge BOTH major presidential candidates, and their running mates, on their backgrounds, their underlying economic philosophies, and their plans. Those who have chosen a candidate and decided to promote his candidacy are at least ethically bound to so declare, and to no longer pretend, at that point, to “report” the race as objective observers. Because it’s so hard to think of the follow-up question that might catch a politician in a lie, isn’t it, when you’re nodding your head and gazing up at him with an expression that reveals to the whole world that he’s just made you wet your panties.

Ninety percent of the American news media did not merely “fail” at this task. They committed professional suicide. Our trust in them, previously merely misplaced, is now essentially gone.

It’s fun to shriek with glee at the beautifulness of your favorite pop star. But as grown-ups, we generally know better than to put the cutest member of The Partridge Family in a position where he can decide whether the federal government shall defy the constitution.

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