The US media: "cupbearer to a styrofoam demigod"

The MSM was in trouble as a result of the Internet revolution in communication. Like the US Post Office, much of its function has become irrelevant. The difference is that the Post Office still has a shred of reputation despite its service issues (ever go to a post office in the last few years to stand in line while employees ask customers about archaic options?) while the MSM is viewed as a hostile occupying army much like the Germans in Paris in 1942.

Much of the Obama coverage was orchestrated sychophancy. They glided past his pretensions — when did a presidential candidate before “address the world” from the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin? They ignored his arrogance — “You’re likeable enough, Hillary.” And they averted their eyes from his every gaffe — such as the admission that he didn’t speak “Austrian.”


The media walked right past the decades-long association of Obama with the weird and racist pastor Jermiah Wright. In the midst of the brief stormlet over the issue, one CNN host — inexplicably — decided that CNN was going to be a “Wright-free zone.” He could have hung out a sign: “No bad news about Obama here.”


The media trashed Hillary. They burned Republicans. They ransacked Sarah Palin and her family. But Obama, the cool, the detached, the oracular Obama — he strolled to the presidency.


Palin, in particular, stands out as Obama’s opposite in the media’s eyes. As much as they genuflected to the one, they felt the need to turn rotweiler toward the other. If Obama was sacred , classy, intellectual and cosmopolitan, why then Palin must be malevolent, trashy, dumb and pure backwoods-ignorant.


Every doubt they hid from themselves about Obama, every potential embarrassment they tucked under the blanket of their superior sensibilities, they furiously over-compensated for by their remorseless hounding of Palin — from utterly trivial e-mails, to blogger Andrew Sullivan’s weird speculations about Palin’s womb, musings that put the Obama “Birther” fantasies into a realm near sanity. (We are now seeing an echo of that — with a new book promoting all sorts of unconfirmed gossip about Palin, including her alleged sexual dalliance with a basketball star.)

Let's not kid anyone, the MSM managed to commit intellectual suicide. Like a rock star on drugs and booze the trip felt good and the groupies were there to make them feel alive but reality is creeping in and nobody has any use for their talent. Anyone can make noise, and the acoustics are even better when it’s all amateur hour.