Category: Blog Post

The New York Times has had two good stories in the last two days illustrating what the Democrats need to do to get back into the good graces of the American voter.

Yesterday a story about Hillary Clinton’s appearance Monday in front of abortion rights activists in New York told of Hillary’s conciliatory tone toward pro-life partisans. Clinton said, “There is an opportunity for people of good faith to find common ground in this debate.”

What was extraordinary about the reactions to this statement was not the expected Republican outcry that she was trying to have it both ways, but the reaction from the pro-choice types, who greeted her overtures to the pro-lifers with silence, and later, thinly veiled admonitions that Hillary better remember where she stands.

In today’s op-ed piece, Paul Starr points out an original notion of what when wrong with the Democrats–that, like in Roe v. Wade and the lawsuits to legalize gay marriage in Massachusetts, they have relied too often on the courts to further their agendas by ruling their desired results legal on constitutional grounds, rather than building a consensus of support that would solidify their positions with electoral majorities.

As Starr and many other have pointed out, the judicially-oriented activism on gay marriage resulted in handing the Republicans a huge issue, and in 11 states (including decisive Ohio) the passage of anti-gay marriage referendums.

And, even more damaging to their cause, the Democrats made sure that George W. Bush will be appointing the next generation of federal judges who will be doing the ruling for a long time to come. Oops.

But try to make these conciliatory points sometime, like Hillary did, and the ideolologically pure Democrats are goint to have a hissy fit.

But now the Republicans are even more beholden to an ideological radical wing than the Democrats. The party that can find its way to the middle ground of reason, compromise and consensus building is the one that’s going to prevail in the long run.

And one place they should start is this war that Bush, Rice, et al. lied us into, and for which Gonzales wrote the playbook for torture. Kudos to Mark Dayton and the other Democrats who are opposing the nominations of Rice and Gonzales. That’s an issue the Democrats need to make their own–that war mongering and torture are inconsistent with the real American “moral values” that Bush ran on. Too bad so many Dems are so unwilling to oppose an African or Hispanic-American nominee that they won’t do the right thing and vote against these disgraceful shills for war.

You’ll recall that one of our guilty pleasures—among several, true—is the Fox program “24,” and this fourth season is certainly setting the bar high on a number of levels. First, it is interesting to watch the show’s writers struggle with the whole anachonistic idea of a cliffhanger. A show that dedicates an hour in real time to an hour in the storyline is bound to run into long stretches of sub-plot, while at the same time trying to sustain the main thrust of the show—in this case, a complicated massive terrorist attack on American soil. This is a formidable conundrum. You’ve gotta give your audience some payback along the way, and to do this, there must be some very bumpy conflict-and-resolution cycles… but always with some sort of provocation to bring them back next week.

Last night may have been the most bold and disturbing episode in the entire series, for a lot of interesting reasons. A quick recap: The US Secretary of Defense has been kidnapped with his daughter. Islamic fundamentalists are holding him in a bunker outside of LA, and they are planning a trial and an execution to be broadcast on the Web. It looks hopeless, so the President—having located the bunker—plans a missile strike to destroy terrorists, abductees, bunker, the whole lot before the execution can take place. Our man, agent Jack Bauer, is on the scene, and he singlehandledly breaks the perimeter and rescues Secretary and daughter.

The rescue is dramatic, and ends with the arrival of the US Marine Corps in helicopters. They rappel into the scene and, with cool precision, rip the place apart.

Now, we are well aware of how filmmakers manipulate us emotionally. We were not very surprised to feel a charge of excitement, a sense of justice, a rush of pride in American military might… this is standard operating procedure for a good action film. We have been set up to be sympathetic to the protagonist of the show (the USA, if you’re keeping track), and merciless to the antagonist. We are put in a position of cheering for death and violence.

What is most interesting about this new season of “24” is that it has removed the last veils of mitigating fiction, and taken the present world-situation head-on. Whereas in previous seasons, terrorist organizations were either a non-specific amalgam of multinational bad guys from some non-existent Baltic state, this seasons bad guys are islamic fundamentalists bent on their well-known goals and methods.

After last night’s blow-up, it is getting very difficult not to see this program as pro-war propagandizing. It is a terrible emotional mine-field to have to negotiate: If you didn’t feel a surge of pride after seeing all those terrorists cut down, you should worry that you can no longer be reached emotionally by the art-and-flash of mass media. (It’s OK to get excited, and then collect yourself and realize that you have been duped. Willing suspension of disbelief—engage!) Perhaps this point was driven home by the news of the Secretary’s successful rescue, televised within the program on (where else) Fox News. Or perhaps it was effected by the post-show dedication of the episode—”This epsiode is dedicated to Lt.Col. Dave Greene of the Marine Light Attack Helicopter Squadron 775. His sacrifice, and the sacrifice of all our men and women of the military, will not be forgotten.”

Indeed. Righteous, merciless justice is so much easier in fiction than in real life. Can Americans tell the difference anymore?

I get a semi-regular newsletter from a guy named Jim Crotty, one of the founders of the ultra hip Monk magazine. The one waiting in my inbox today was titled “Bush Throws Dems a Bone: Will they Fetch.”

Crotty argues that the inagural speech “freedom fest” will set the bar pretty high for the Republicans. Bush, Crotty argues, has now committed his administration to a policy that more closely reflects the late pronouncements of Democratic softies like Jimmy Carter, i.e. that the United States should promote democracy and human rights in the world.
When you realize that among our biggest friends these days (at least the biggest friends of the Bush cabal) are such vigorous defenders of Jeffersonian ideals as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and China, you begin to wonder what the hell Bush is really talking about…other that again masterfully co-opting traditional Democratic issues.

Crotty sees Bush’s pronouncements as a perfect opportunity for Democrats to call him to task–to actually hold him responsible for what he says vs. what he does. But, if we’ve learned anything in the past 4 years is that the Dems can’t hold anybody responsible for anything. What if, for example, they said something like this: “Bush said we started the war in Iraq because Iraq had WMD. Then he said Iraq sponsored terrorism. Then he said Saddam was a terrible dictator that had to go. Then he said Iraq will be an example to other Middle Eastern dictatorships of what freedom can be. Which is it?” Don’t hold your breath.

Why is it that Bush can change his message at will and get away with it, yet the Dems can’t even get one message across with any consistency?

Will the Dems hold Bush to his promise for the next four years? All I’d be willing to bet on is that the story will change a lot between now and then, but it will still being the Bushies doing the talking and the Dems wondering what the hell happened to their issue…again.

We happened to be present this morning at both a death and a birth. About an hour ago, Minnesota Public Radio pulled the plug on WCAL… And like trying to change alarm clocks without having to reset, they quickly plugged in KCMP, the much ballyhooed new “eclectic music” station they are calling “The Current.” Most people don’t pay that much attention to this sort of thing, but there is a decorum to be observed, and people in the industry attach great importance to the moment of switch-over. Normally, after a hostile commercial take-over, a station will switch formats without calling any attention to itself.

We remember eight years ago when an audibly surprised and upset Shawn Stewart said goodbye with virtually no warning the day Cargill sold REV-105. We don’t remember what song was played at the top of the last hour, but it was some godawful hair-metal song played on a continuous loop for at least 24 hours, while presumably REV-105 staffers were escorted from the building.

There were other reasons to remember that infamous day—it was the same day that the Village Voice announced it had bought City Pages and the Twin Cities Reader, and would be liquidating the latter. For those of us in the media biz, it sure felt like the day the national corporate monopolies moved into the Twin Cities and started crashing around our quaint little china shop. But of course, death often leads to birth—both processes being almost too painful to endure.

Old fans of REV-105 will surely expect “The Current” to reprise what they remember, in the sepia-toned twilight of their memories, about that celebrated radio station. And in the intervening years, we find we’ve become jaded about radio. An interesting inversion has occured in the last fifteen years. Commercial radio has so successfully been colonized by the bean-counters, focus-groupers, and poll-takers, that we expect any radio station that wants to compete will have its programming dictated by its format. That is, if your market needs a classic rock station, according to market research, then you will have certain, very limited choices about what kinds of music you can play. Your DJs, it is understood, aren’t a lot more invested in the business than your custodians–their jobs being limited to moving stuff and pushing buttons. Think?! You’re not paid to think, you’re paid to DO!

When news escaped that MPR was planning some sort of popular-variety music station, we were skeptical. Then, when they began to announce the pending switch-over to “eclectic radio,” we thought they were having trouble deciding what the station would be. In the mouths of radio professionals, “eclectic” is a word with much the same effect as a barber saying “Oops.” Surely MPR was not having trouble figuring this new animal out?

And then we realized what we most loved about REV-105. That station could get away with programming virtually anything, from Luna to KISS, Jimmie Rodgers to Joy Division. The reason they could do it successfully was because of the station’s ineffable personality. It reflected a group identity that synched and felt natural. The station owners left the programming in the hands of a bunch of passionate kids with great taste in music, and the results now live in immortal legend. (The Big Boss just stepped in to add, soto voce: “Yeah, but what was REV-105’s listenership? Microscopic!”) We like to think the same thing happens here at The Rake. There are no sui generis Rake stories, nothing really off limits. The only thing that dictates what we publish is whether it piques our collective, er, eclectic interests.

So far, we have to say the new station’s first-day playlist looks completely insane on paper. Opening song by Atmosphere. Last set: Luna, Son Volt, Hank Williams, Matt Pond. But then we had the funny realiziation that it compares favorably to our own iTunes library, set to shuffle.

Yeah, but can an idiosyncratic mix of unimpeachably cool music succeed as a real radio station with a real audience? We hope for their sake and ours that it can–but idiosyncracy plus mass media normally equals that saddest of all propositions: a critically-acclaimed money loser. It’s neat to think we’re not the only crazy people swimming against the currents of modern commercial media.

Forgive me if I’ve been thinking about this a bit, but the reason I haven’t been blogging for the past 9 days is that I’ve been flattened by a flu-like malady. Believe me, next year, I’m getting the shot. I don’t care how many old ladies I have to trample.

But it doesn’t seem so bad after reading up a bit on what could be in store for us. Now Forbes, the business magazine that bills itself as the Capitalist Tool, doesn’t seem to be high on the list of fear-mongering yellow journals. But this article is pretty damn scary.

According to Michael Osterholm, the University of Minnesota epidemiologist, the avian flu now running around Asia could mutate into a virus that can be transmitted human to human, instead of only bird to human, as it seems to be now. If that happens, millions will die before any vaccine could be developed or distributed. Here’s more on that.

So, what can we do in the meantime…other than pray? Well, we could mobilize on research and vaccine creation. But, as Vice President Cheney so aptly pointed out when the regular flu vaccine shortage came to light, “There’s no money in that.”

If you’re wondering what this potential flu pandemic will be worth, though, the insurance companies have done some figuring for you. Here is that info, in case you want to start short selling your insurance stocks.

We’re not sure how other editors operate, so much. From anecdotal evidence, it seems that most editors are less curious than they are controlling. They will pass up a great story idea because the writer is not quite right. An editor put in the position of explaining why he is not interested in a piece will frequently say, “This is not quite right for us.” Pressed on the issue, he will say, “Well, there is a certain ineffable quality to our magazine, and this doesn’t have that.”

This is a dodge, of course. A wise editor separates subject from writer. Is the subject of interest to my readers? (Corollary—the reader doesn’t much care who the writer is, as long as it’s a good and interesting story. Sure, we all have our favorite writers, but it’s not like we won’t read a good piece if we don’t recognize the byline.) Secondarily, editors have to be honest about whether they like the style and skill of the writer. This is where editors turn into despicable and evasive people who will not be honest with the writer, and will probably go to hell when they die. (Hell, by the way, will be an Ikea on an eternal Saturday morning.)

Writing is, on a microscopic level, a mathematical thing—it is either correct or it is not. But taken as a whole, a piece of writing is a highly subjective thing, open to worlds of interpretation and impression. There are world-class writers that we respect and admire, but whom we simply cannot read because of a weird style-aversion. At our own modest little bush-league level, we’re sure we have the same effect on other people (indeed, we have a bloated rejection file to prove it), and so we like to believe that there is always more to learn, more to do, to become better at the craft of writing (and editing).

So anyway, a good editor with intentions of going to heaven at the end of his career, will tell a writer precisely why a suggested or submitted piece “is not quite right for us.” This, of course, takes a little bit of time and effort, but that is the job of the editor. Often, editors revert to an automatic position of “thanks but no thanks” for the simple reason that they have far too many great stories and far too few pages. They should say that. Or they may have run a similar story recently, or seen it in one of their competitor’s publications. They should say that. Or perhaps the editors have a strong sense that the story will not be of interest to their readers. They should say that. We don’t have a lot of patience for editors who cannot be more specific about their rejections. It is the job of the editor to instill that “ineffable quality” she seeks in everything she publishes—and believe us, she does this, quite often with an iron fist and none of the niceties. (The way they talk in their rejections makes you think that they expect to receive copy that is ready to publish without any tampering at all, and this is a cutting lie.) So an editor is ultimately trying to be nice when she says “not quite right for us.” A writer frequently wants to know: Is it me? Or is it the subject? This may seem needy on the writer’s part, but if the writer is a serious professional, it is useful to know. If it is the writer’s style or voice or lack of experience, then he can devote his valuable time to other magazines that might be a better fit. A writer does not like to hear the excuse from the editor that “I have 600 emails from other writers, it’s nothing personal.” Writing IS personal, if you take it seriously. Each writer must find a way to deal with rejection (there is a lot more of that than the other), but when we happen to go freelancing, we prefer no reply at all to a disingenuous one.

(We have to say right now that we are far from blameless in any of this. We hope we are judged by our good intentions and our general professional sunniness. We honestly try, at all times, to use our powers for good. Two areas where we need improvement: Snappier replies and yet more sympathy for the bitter freelancer. If you get a form-letter rejection from The Rake, it is likely that you have done something to make us angry. Otherwise, we are late in replying because we are carefully composing a thoughtful response to your idea or submission, or it somehow slipped through the cracks. We don’t mind gentle reminders—but be warned that this is not normal.)

It is certainly true that everyone today fancies himself or herself a writer, and if you work at a publication with any broad appeal at all, you will be inundated with hundreds of queries, pitches, and stories. We—and here, I am referring to me—have been singled out for public shaming here at the office because our email inbox accounts for almost a quarter of all available server memory. By far the vast majority of these unsolicited submissions are personal essays, stories, and anecdotes—precisely the kind of thing that doesn’t get published so much anymore by anyone. We tell people that, just about as diplomatically, honestly, and quickly as we can.

It has come to our attention that someone around town is stickering our noble little magazine racks. First, there was a sticker with the strange invocation to “Fight Commonism.” Now, either the same party, or someone else, has decided to emend that bold statement with “Republicans Suck” in a few true, blue locations.

After a great deal of street-walking, note-taking, and question-asking, we now know who was responsible for the first round of stickering.

It was us. As it turns out, our good friends at AB advertising helped us develop this little campaign, which at one point grew ambitious enough to make the leap to cable TV. In that ad, we poked a little fun directly at our friendly colleagues in high places, who had suffered the embarrassment of getting caught, uh, sycophanting the same person at the same time.

We have had some small reservations about the opportunity for misunderstanding this whole “commonism” thing, particularly on the radio ads. In the mouths of less-experienced or more-harried broadcasters, it has been audibly mispronounced as “communism.” While the invitation to “fight communism” is rakish in a pleasant sort of way—who doesn’t like to be put in the game when the score is out of reach?—it is not a precise representation of our politics around here. (We leave it to you to decide what those are. The one thing you can count is that we love a good argument, and by the time we’re done, we don’t remember what our opinion was in the first place. If there was a party called “Devil’s Advocate,” we’d join up faster than you could say, “Paul Magers is actually kinda complex, I could read a thousand magazine articles about him, and die wanting more.”)

So but! What is with these “Republicans Suck” stickers? We are not happy about them. The vandals can’t possibly believe we here at The Rake are so unseemly in our affiliations as to have a declared party. The possibilities boggle the beleagured mind. Do they know that we stickered the “Commonism” bits, but they misread it as “communism,” and assume we are old-school, red-baiting McCarthy-ites? That would be a middling kind of ignorance—smart enough to recognize the irony of us stickering our own racks, but not smart enough to spell correctly, nor to read the magazine very closely. Are they rushing to our defense, thinking we are under attack by old-school, red-baiting GOPers? That would be a sort of charming naivete, compounded by the spelling and reading problem. Are they just silly kids looking for a safe place to put a provocative sticker? That would be the most-likely, least time-wasting conclusion a busy editor could make.

In today’s New York Observer, our old friend Philip Weiss indulges us in one of our favorite subjects—the history of the New Yorker. Weiss, you may know, began his decorated career in journalism here in the Twin Cities and some of his most memorable stories have been set in the area. (His profile in Harper’s of Stephen Blumberg, the Twin Cities native who took bibliophila to felonious new heights, is a classic.)

Anyway, Weiss reiterates the story of New Yorker writer Jack Kahn, who was one of the magazine’s most prolific authors, and helped establish its national reputation by writing from the ranks of the U.S. Army during World War II. We’ve mentioned before one of the mechanical reasons the New Yorker supersized its national reputation (and circulation) after the war—they’d cultivated a massive readership in the military itself with free Pony editions. When GIs got home from the war, they became subscribers en masse, wherever they lived.

Weiss makes a good case based on aesthetics as well. Before World War II, the magazine was fizzy. It still considered itself primarily a humor magazine set in the Jazz age. War changed the tenor of the times, and would either kill the the magazine or require it to evolve. It was always a good magazine, but a world war was the kind of journalistic material that created an opportunity to make a lasting contribution to American letters. Harold Ross and his staff rose to the occasion, and their achievement has now persisted for three-quarters of a century. (The title of Weiss’s article, “The New Yorker at War,” is also the title of an old anthology of the magazine’s best pieces from World War II. Highly recommended.)

It makes us sad to consider how times have changed. We hate to be defeatist, but it seems like no amount of courage today is enough to do meaningful work in the field of journalism, particularly as it pertains to Iraq. Print as a medium has certainly declined in substance and style, but more crucially, the entire culture is inured to journalism. Reporters and writers are held in low esteem—generally considered either rubes to be manipulated by PR flacks, or partisan snipers to be avoided at any cost. In both cases, the free movement of both mind and body are gone, for the journalist. The borders are closed; we simply do not get the access or the respect that reporters got in the middle of the last century.

To get directly to the point: Why aren’t there any memorable stories coming out of Iraq—the most important story of the new century? It is because good, thoughtful, independent writers are not getting in or out, and the military has a waterproof monopoly on virtually all meaningful information there. If it does not support the campaign, it is not allowed. Please refer to your wallet-card instructions for dealing with the press.

More subtly, the main difference between then and now is this: Today’s volunteer army is far more class-segregated than the drafted armies of the second world war. The New Yorker had a number of established young writers who were subsequently drafted and went to war. Almost to a man, these young fellows wished to continue to write for the New Yorker. Today, nothing is more rare than a trained writer in the ranks. Even if we could find him, he would have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting clearance to write for an independent, objective, for-profit magazine. If the military has learned anything in the past fifty years, it’s how to use information as yet another weapon in the arsenal. Never has the phrase “loose lips sink ships” been more threatening to the simple enterprise of telling a truthful and engaging story about the most important, brutally dangerous moment in our lifetimes.

Yesterday, USA Today reported that Rolling Stone magazine has turned down an ad from a Bible publisher. A company called Zondervan, apparently the largest publisher of Bibles in the nation, wanted to buy a full-spread advertisement to reach out to “spiritually intrigued 18 to 34 years olds.” This is a demographic that is supposedly buying religious and spiritual books as if their life depended on it—except for the Holy Bible. Citing some obscure policy against religious advertising, Jann Wenner’s godless people decided to pass. We can see the inter-office memo now:

“We regret to inform you that our spiritual director, Satan, sees a conflict of interest in advertising your book with us. This would be a little like NBC agreeing to ads for ABC. We’re sure you can understand that. We were crazy to consider this in the first place, although we are not in the habit of turning down money from anyone. That smacks dangerously of morality, and how far in the world we get with morality? Not very far, indeed!”

We’ve joked about all the strange human behavior we’re seeing that might be signalling the end-times—but actually, it all comes down to that hoary boogeyman, the “emboldened religious right.” There is something both reassuring and disturbing about Rolling Stone’s seemingly random enforcement of what they admit is an “unwritten policy.” On the one hand, it feels like tit-for-tat: You cannot simultaneously condemn the godless youth culture and its secular overlords, and co-opt them in your ad campaigns. On the other hand, why is the “embattled left” so uncomformtable with traditional religion?

Christians, for their part, should take a good long look in the mirror and realize that their sur-name is not as blameless as they might like it to be. The extended family, from radical protestants to insane evangelicals, has made the whole country jumpy. Regular people who prefer to take their spirituality with a heavy chaser of secular realism, want no part of “organized religion” because it harbors too many hippocritical, hateful people. Soon it will be neceessary to clarify just what kind of Christian you are—just as we now expect practicing Muslims to disavow fundamentalism.

Up until now, it’s been a sort of one-sided story of conservative Christians strong-arming their views onto a nervous public, with the complicity of conservative media owners. It was a mere six weeks ago that two television network refused to run ads for the United Church of Christ which made it clear that this progressive denomination was, unlike the louder sects of the self-righteous, open to gays and lesbians and minorities. Last year, the International Bible Society successfully inserted the Gospel of Luke into the Houston Chronicle. And just a few weeks ago, the Colorado Springs Gazette accepted the entire New Testament as an insert.

The Bible is the world’s best-selling book ever, and it is copyright free. It is free money to anyone who wants to publish it. Of course, the marketplace has been flooded, and there is some question as to whether supply has not exceeded demand . Still, there is something tawdry about advertising the Holy Bible—a method of indirect evangelizing that falls somewhere between street-pamphleteering and the siren-call of the personal injury lawyers. There used to be gentleman’s agreements that certain aspects of our lives were to be held above the shimmy-shake of the ad-man’s solicitations. But of course, those times are long gone. Where would Jesus advertise?

It is gratifying that people seem to be getting unfortable with pushy religious sorts. Our nation was founded on religious freedom, but more important than that, it was founded on religious dissent. A magazine that is nothing without dissent—or at least the marketable perception of dissent, the cornerstone of rock ‘n’ roll—probably cannot afford to be associated in the minds of its readers with the opposite of dissent, which is blind faith.

But a thoughtful person admits there is something unsettling about Rolling Stone’s decision. Any publisher can refuse advertising for any reason (although they may not be able to avoid law suits when they do), but their actions suggest that they think there is something wrong with reading the most important text of Western Civilization. If more people read the Bible for themselves, free from the insane interpretations of greasy-haired bullies in pulpits, on soapboxes, and on cable TV, the scales might fall from their eyes, and they might see how the good name of Christianity (and, by the way, Judaism and Islam—people of “The Book,” you know) is being destroyed by the self-righteous forcing it into the secular world, which does not tolerate absolutism very well or for very long.

Still, we’re troubled. We wonder if this whole dust-up somehow invalidates that ordination we received years ago through one of Rolling Stone’s classified ads.

Last Friday, we had what must have been the biggest, most mirthful Rakish party yet. Sad to say, the Big Boss was dreadfully sick, which is a shame, because no one hosts a party like the Big Boss. Still, just about anyone and everyone who is responsible for putting together The Rake was there, in fine form. High point of the evening was a game of doubles on the billiards table. Shooters were quizzed on a capricious list of great titles from literature. It was not required to know who wrote, for example, The Stranger, in order to take your shot. An incorrect or incomplete answer was just as acceptable as a correct one, and anyone in the gallery could offer an answer. It was rather like cognitive bumper-pool—brainteasers as distractions and obstacles. For some reason, we were stuck on science fiction authors and existentialist authors—perhaps because we thought these would be easiest. Perhaps because the mental horizons had been considerably contracted by a lot of really, really good wine. Anyway, we managed to stump Hugh Bennewitz with a reversal. What was Alexis de Tocvqueville’s most famous book? Bennewitz demurred, and we answered— incorrectly, or at least incompletely, “America.” In all fairness, this should go down in the minutes as a demerit to the question-asker. The title of De Toqueville’s most famous work is, of course, “Democracy in America.” We are sorry. But we know what we meant.

It is often the spirit of the thing that counts. This morning, we read James Woolcott’s takedown of the insufferable Charles Krauthammer, and we couldn’t agree more. A well-established truism: One of the underpinnings of the red wave has been the echo chamber of right-wing bloggers, radio, and TV, who simply will not let go of certain arguments and certain incidents, no matter how specious or wrong they are. It’s like Chinese water torture with these people.

We find it especially interesting that in all the kerfuffle about “Rathergate” (egad, we thought the -gate suffix had finally been staked through the heart, along with -stock, but we live in regressive times— hello, again, Gilded Age! Goodbye, New Deal!), no one has ever argued the facts, only the documentation. This is a happy situation for the right, which has strangely become the party of moral relativism. These days, no one argues more loudly than a conservative that the message is indistinguishable from the messenger, that it is impossible to have a truly objective journalism, and therefore we must wallow in a constant jet-stream of gas and bile.

Anyway, the whole point of “Rathergate” has, from the right’s point of view, become a smoking gun on the liberal bias of the media. Of course, no amount of painful soul-searching, and no mea culpa at any volume will satisfy these people. Because once we move beyond that perfect storm of speculation and conspiracy theory, we are left with what we are always left with—the plain old boring facts. Why is it more improtant that Dan Rather got duped by forgeries than that our president went AWOL? Why did the Swift Boat vets continue to have an impact on the national consciousness after their claims had been eviscerated by serious journalists? Why have the stories that independently confirmed the essential claims and spirit of the news report that became Rathergate been pushed aside? Why does no one care when the present administration actually pays a reporter to produce news that is favorable to his benefactor? Why have we been acting as if Vietnam never happened? Because this is what the right-leaning media does best—strike up the band, especially the trombone section, whenever there is partisan skirmish to be won, and especially when there are inconvenient facts to be obscured. Which is at all times and in all places.