Deborah Lipp

I’ve been thinking about Tom’s Hofstadter posts, and I’ve decided they represent cause for optimism. After all, Hofstadter wrote fortysome years ago, and we got out of it that time.

The reactionary 50s brought us the freewheeling 60s and 70s. Then came the backlash. We haven’t lost all the ground we gained (although we’ve lost some previously untouched ground). It’s more a spiral than a circle. Despite the Right’s efforts, we still have legal abortion (in 49 states), and access to birth control. Women can control their own credit, can seek their own medical care, and maternity leave is a matter of law. Evidence of premarital sex will not get you ostracized in most communities. Blacks and whites have managed to eat at the same lunch counters for quite a few years now without deliterious effect.

My point is, we took more steps forward than we are taking back, and the fact that we , as a culture, overcame intense repression in the 50s and found another way means we can do it again in the 21st century.

(Cross-posted at Tom’s place.)

I just went into the lunch room to get a soda. Usually, the TV in there is tuned to CNN Headline News. Just now it is tuned to one of those Abrasive Judge Yells At People shows.

I’m thinking there’s an audience for combining the two. You know, have newsmakers come before the judge and have him yell at them and tell them they’re lying scumbags, and to give the American people back their money and go home. “Mr. Rumsfeld, you know you said you knew where the WMDs were, now don’t try to tell me otherwise!” “This nice lady just wants to know why her son was killed. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” “Stop telling me about your plan for Iraq and answer my question!”

Look, the news media isn’t doing their job. Why not give TV judges a chance?

I’m thinking he’s been thrown under the bus. But why, specifically? This could be fun.

Update: Bloggers speculate this is about Hookergate, and it looks to me like they’re right.

There’s a brilliant diary over at Daily Kos that you should read. Diarist Magorn is talking about Dan Froomkin’s article on the White House Press Corps Dinner and all the tut-tut tsk-tsking about Colbert’s brillaint satire.

Events like the Dinner, and what it reveals about the incestuous, access-driven world of the Washington Media, are EXACTLY what drives us crazy about the mainstream media these days. They have incredible access to the powers that be, supposedly on our behalf. They are in a unique position to confront and challenge the Administration’s lies and law-breaking. They should be our surrogates, demanding answers from our elected leaders. Instead, they do nothing. Why? Because it might jeopardize their access. It has gone from a means to an end , to an end in and of itself. Like cigarettes in prison, it has become the currency of the powerless.

Read the whole thing.