Thursday, April 19, 2007

NOT GONZO FOR ALBERTO

We've said it before, but it bears repeating: All news is relative. Don Imus knows this and must marvel at his marriage of bad taste and bad timing. Last week he was the media rage; this week any remark he made would have been a speck on the media radar.

Alas, another speck on Thursday was Alberto Gonzalez. The attorney general was spanked hard by a Senate committee investigating the dismissals of several U.S. attorneys. The Gonzalez hearing was mostly a no-show on the cable news networks, sidelined by fourth-day coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings and the latest angle -- media navel-gazing over the call to publish Cho Seung Hui's last rants.

While Gonzalez flailed, cable newsrooms ignored him, too anguished over the Cho matter to seriously cover both stories. A backlash from family members of some of Cho's victims brought somber statements from network executives, pledging that they would be sparing in their use of the killer's video.

Said ABC News mouthpiece Jeffrey Schneider:
"It has value as breaking news, but then becomes practically pornographic as it is just repeated ad nauseam."
Finally, someone admits it. Cable news is porn.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Arlan Spector is awsome.
That's right, I said it.

Anonymous said...

Anyone can make a fiery speech when the CSPAN cameras are running. The question is, what's been his record of follow-through on his tough words?

The only thing awesome about the Senator from Pennsylvania is his ability to turn colors, like a chameleon, as a defensive tactic against his critics. (And it plays well to the conservative folks back home who keep re-electing him.) His spine is absent when it comes to actually pressing members of his own party, including the President, to take action against fools like Gonzalez. For a guy who's served for more than a decade on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the man's a dud.

Anonymous said...

,but one hell of a Senetor.

Anonymous said...

If you say so, Mrs. Specter.

Anonymous said...

I am from S.P.E.C.T.O.R.

Anonymous said...

I was impressed with the junior senator from Rhode Island, Sheldon Whitehouse, I believe.