CSotD: Fragments and asides
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Matt Pritchett has a talent for reducing complexities to simple imagery.
Journalistic neutrality is a polite fiction, but it works if you take it seriously, as we once did.
Walter Cronkite is often held up as the model for broadcasters. When he took off his glasses in announcing the death of JFK, or when he showed boyish excitement over some space mission, it was a reminder of his humanity and emphasized how often he didn’t respond emotionally to the news.
But then came the Barbara Walters school of broadcasting, in which part of the announcer’s job is to help us feel. Her signature move was to lean forward, concern on her face, perhaps reach out to touch an arm in sympathy.
The Fox approach is open commentary, employing the fact that many viewers can’t tell newscasters from commentators, and bolstered by intentional boosting of some stories and intentional suppression of others.
Even in the most mundane settings, feelings are encouraged: The local news is often co-anchored by a male/female team in which one reports a story and the other then signals How We All feel About It, with a sigh or a cluck of the tongue, if not actual words.
I prefer dealing with political cartoonists, the best of whom make an effort to get their facts straight, but none of whom pretend to be neutral.
John Branch (KFS), for instance, is clear in his feelings about Trump and Biden, but this goes beyond partisan insults and leaves room beyond the surface matter of “Here we go again,” to let readers — even ones who also like Biden — ask why the “rinse” didn’t work?
John Auchter didn’t need to adopt this dark palette to make his point, but it emphasizes that there’s little doubt about his sympathies.
He touches on one of my favorite analects from Confucius: “In vain have I looked for a
single man capable of seeing his own faults and bringing the charge home against himself.”
Master K’ung may have spoken 2500 years too soon, because I’ve seen several cartoons of Uncle Sam looking at himself, or at Donald Trump, in the mirror.
But looking at yourself is only the first step. How many addicts, how many abusers, how many compulsive victims, how many alcoholics, have looked at themselves and seen their flaws?
Let’s see if we are able to genuinely bring the charge home and produce real change.
John Cuneo puts a complicated twist on it, because his speaker begins by blaming the voters, an echo of the old Tammany Hall gag, “The people have spoken, damn them,” but admits to having been rejected.
However, Cuneo’s man is in agreement with Master K’ung, because the way it’s phrased, there is no genuine self-reflection, much less any pledge of reform: The fault rests entirely with those stupid people, and not with the coterie of allies and advisors whom they refused to follow.
Yet another example of people whose idea of reform is for everyone but them to change.
K’ung Fu-tzu holds up pretty well, which is kind of a shame. But then the wisdom of Joshua ben Joseph hasn’t seemed to made much change in us either. So it goes.
Juxtaposition of the Day
We’ve long heard speculation that Trump’s second administration would lack the sort of serious, experienced functionaries who kept him from running amok through the first four years of his Amateur Hour.
The stories that came out of that first White House were bizarre, like people sneaking papers off his desk so he wouldn’t sign them, or having to tape documents together for the archives because he kept tearing them up, or adding his name into papers because it was the only way to get him to read them.
Which was charming in Great Expectations:
“Give me,” said Joe, “a good book, or a good newspaper, and sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!” he continued, after rubbing his knees a little, “when you do come to a J and a O, and says you, ‘Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,’ how interesting reading is!”
Chappatte dismisses those dire warnings about a second term in which he would bring in a sinister cabal from the Federalist Society. No, he intends to surround himself with a freak show in which the Stevens — Miller and Bannon — would be the normies.
Now Trump has announced that he will brook no resistance to approving the loonies he wants in his cabinet, warning Congress that those who insist on advising and consenting will not be approved for leadership roles.
I like de Adder’s suggestion that he’s including Little Bobby in order to distract from the rest of the screwballs in his line-up, and the jaw-dropping prospect of RFK Jr as head of HHS might well stiffen a few spines in the Senate, which is why Trump wants to be able to bypass confirmation hassles.
The problem with Little Bobby is that the horrific outcomes of his insane policies would not be obvious in time for the 2026 midterms. Lack of fluoridation in water and ending vaccine requirements in schools will take years to become an obvious tragedy.
Better to have Trump impose his idiotic tariffs so that prices will quickly skyrocket and voters will remember with nostalgia the days when they thought eggs and gasoline were too expensive.
However, I think du Bus has the clearest vision, which is that Trump really believes the government will run itself just like a Musk taxi, although self-driving cars are being investigated for accidents, including a fatality.
But Trump will likely order the government to stop imposing safety standards on cars.
Or anything else, bearing in mind that in the Good Old Days, when farmers were crippled with tariffs and fat cats celebrated the Gilded Age, we didn’t interfere with the meat-packers.
Or the pharmaceutical industry.
Though obviously we’d have to maintain some standards in that area.
Stay tuned. We’re just getting started.
In lieu of music:
Yesterday, I featured Morten Morland’s latest portrait of Donald Trump, and here it is again because he has written a piece about his approach to drawing Trump and how he has developed that approach over the years, with a number of examples to amuse and horrify you.
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