As a break from the candidate wars, let us unite and focus our derision on the stupidity of our chattering class. They really are driving me to drink at this point. That's about the only antidote to these idiots who continue to plague our discourse. Every once in awhile, a new one pops up, and the optimist in me goes, "Finally, here's a new reporter who will actually do his/her job and not feed us with unending Joe Klein-esque bullshit."
And then, predictably, they write something that crushes my spirit and optimism yet again (and leads me to a bottle of Jack...). Follow me below the fold to see the newest atrocities perpetuated by Time's new Swampland blogger, Michael Scherer.
So when I saw that Swampland had hired Michael Scherer to blog there, not being familiar with his work, I decided to peruse his resume. Apparently he wrote for Mother Jones and was from Columbia Journalism. Great! Possibly someone with some intelligence who might improve the discourse in Time's newsroom. Alas, it was not to be. One of his first posts has simply reiterated my belief that 95% of journalists are a bunch of fucking morons who haven't let the nonsense of high school stay there. More specifically, I suspect that they were mostly the vapid kids desperately trying to be popular who I despised at the time.
Never did I think this view would be born out so perfectly. I shit you not, Mr. Scherer's most recent post over there is entitled: The GOP's High School Debate: The cool kid vs. the valedictorian
The money quote:
Here's one thing you need to know about John McCain. He's always been the coolest kid in school. He was the brat who racked up demerits at the Naval Academy. He was the hot dog pilot who went back to the skies weeks after almost dying in a fire on the U.S.S. Forrestal. His first wife was a model. His second wife was a rich girl, 17 years his junior. He kept himself together during years of North Vietnamese torture and solitary confinement. When he sits in the back of his campaign bus, we reporters gather like kids in the cafeteria huddling around the star quarterback. We ask him tough questions, and we try to make him slip up, but almost inevitably we come around to admiring him. He wants the challenge. He likes the give and take. He is, to put it simply, cooler than us.
The terrible extended metaphor metastasizes from there, likening Mitt Romney to the overachieving kid who is really smart (if only that were the case).
Atrios already offered commentary on this point, wondering if perhaps this was some sort of elaborate parody of Mr. Scherer's idiot colleagues at Time (who are pretty much all demonstrably dumber than a bag of hammers). I somehow doubt it (that dumb optimist in me wants to believe this - he is currently having the crap kicked out of him by the depressed realist inside my head right now). Either way, I now have a headache. And the good Democratic debate had me in such a good mood too. Pity.
I just wonder if journalism schools (even the allegedly good ones at Mizzou and Columbia U.) have a stupidity class that trains these folks to be this way. If it wasn't for you all and the decent reporting that gets done here and at other progressive sites, I probably would just disconnect completely. I don't really have a conclusion, action item, or anything profound beyond hoping to arouse some pointing and laughing at these twits. I'm not sure it's productive, but writing this was at least quite therapeutic.