Cable News Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack

If you watch television news, I hate you.  Now, I suppose if you only watch it for ironic value, I won't hold it against you; though I would recommend that you seek professional help (and I say that as someone who has literally spent hours reading the ramblings at RedState...and enjoyed it).  But television news is really just the pits when it comes to covering actual reality and anyone who supports it is the enemy.

And that's why I don't understand why anyone gets their fluff into a dander every time that loonbomb Ann Coulter makes it on the TV.  Because I don't see this as a case of them lowering their standards.  I think they're just exposing who they really are.  Anyone who would give that clown a platform to speak on deserves the ridicule they get for having her on.  But not for the single act of putting her on their show, but for exposing that they're the type of schmucks who would do that kind of thing.

And it doesn't matter if they're disagreeing with her or disputing her points.  Ann Coulter is simply not a serious person.  She's a joke.  And anyone who takes her seriously is the punchline of that joke.  She's not debating the issues.  She's mocking them with every utterance.  And she's laughing just as hard at the people who attack her as those who agree.  And the only cure is to laugh at her and anyone who takes her seriously.  And that includes the television dipwads who pretend they're doing a public service by talking about her books.

They're All Losers

And for that matter, why worry about Fox News?  Sure, they're a reality bereft organization that seeks only to rob people of their sanity.  But at least they're somewhat open about it.  Sure, they play it all with a straightface, but there can be no doubt that their tongues are firmly in cheek at every moment.  It's a farce and they know it.  That's more than the bimbos at CNN and the other networks can say (and I use that term in a gender-neutral sense).  They actually think they're doing something good with their work.  At least the jerks at Fox are in on the joke.  The dopes at CNN are the punchline.

And so stories that used to be embarrassing for local stations to cover now dominate the national news.  And celebrity news is always good news for these jokers.  OJ Simpson opened up a whole new doorway of exciting news stories, and they're always desperate to find anything to fill their twenty-four hour news day (not that the non-cable news is any better).  Whereas news organizations of yore once saw themselves as public servants, the current crop of newsies imagine they're reality show producers, trying their best to entertain the masses.  

These days, a story becomes "newsworthy" if it's what people want; which flips the very concept on its head completely.  And even when they cover actual news it barely approaches the depth that you can find on many blogs.  Not that I'm one of those who believe that bloggers will somehow replace journalists, but CNN isn't really doing journalism either.  The act of standing in a wartorn country is not journalism any more than standing in a hurricane is meteorology.  These people are entertainers, and if some news happens to get in the way, all the better.  But they wouldn't really know the difference anyway.  Somehow, they still seem to believe a story becomes newsworthy once it's connected to OJ Simpson.

And so bring on Ann Coulter and her inanities.  Let's have Fox News go even deeper into fantasy, perhaps blaming the Civil War on Obama, or even adopting Atrios' idea of covering the parallel universe of the Palin presidency that their viewers want so badly to believe in.  This doesn't harm journalism, but rather showcases what a joke it's all become.  It's the "serious" journalists who are the fiends we really should be blaming.  Coulter and Fox couldn't exist without them.  The problem isn't when clownish people say clownish things.  The problem is when serious people treat them seriously.