Marjorie Williams and Tucker Carlson
The Propagandists Have Got Us
By Tucker Carlson
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2000, at 5:50 PM ETDear Marjorie,
I'm writing this from the spacious offices of the Weekly Standard, a division of News Corp. Which is another way of saying: You're not going to bait me into a conversation about Wendi Deng Murdoch or her husband. But I agree that the Journal piece was fascinating, the most interesting thing I've read this week. And I'll leave it at that.
I'm also going to pass on your implied question about whether I get a lot of nut mail. No reason to incite the lunatics who write it. Not that any of them read Slate.
Instead, let's talk about something really upsetting. Did you see the full-page ad from the Partnership for a Drug Free America that ran in the New York Times yesterday? It was on C24 of the "Business" section. I was just balling it up to throw in the wood stove (I only read "Business" on Mondays, as I've admitted) when the headline grabbed me: "What To Do After Burying Your 10-Year-Old."
The ad was meant (I guess) to alert parents to the dangers of inhalants, the "over 100 household products that can be inhaled to get high, like correction fluid, spray paint, or even gasoline." Fair enough. Sniffing paint is dangerous (I worked as a house painter for part of a summer during college and haven't been able to balance my checkbook since.), and parents ought to tell their kids not to do it.
So far, so sensible. But propagandists at Partnership for a Drug-Free America go way beyond that. The ad imagines what a parent says while standing at the grave of his 10-year-old who has died from using inhalants: "You tell her about the flowers you bought, and about the movie you saw last night. You tell her all the people who miss her--her brothers, her aunt. Tears stream down your cheeks as you tell her you miss her too. You hope she knows. You walk away from your child's grave for the ninth time this week feeling emptier still."
It goes on and gets worse, but I won't repeat it. It's too depressing. I felt emotional by the end of the second sentence. I guess that was the point.
I was offended by it. The ad is too much, too manipulative. I think it's obscene, actually, the sort of thing that Bill Bennett and Joe Lieberman (and Al Gore, when he's in his Anti-Filth Crusader mode) ought to be howling about. But they won't howl about it. Because the ad is in the service of an idea we're all, as good citizens, supposed to agree with. So the propagandists have got us: They wreck our breakfasts with a gratuitously morbid ad that uses the bond between parent and child to make what is in many ways a political point. And we're not allowed to complain about it.
Well, I, for one, am complaining. Growl.
Best,
Tucker
The Propagandists Have Got Us
By Tucker Carlson
Posted Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2000, at 5:50 PM ETMarjorie Williams is the author of a weekly opinion column for the Washington Post
, a contributing writer at Talk
magazine, and a member of Slate's "Book Club." Tucker Carlson writes for the Weekly Standard and Talk
magazine. Reader Comments from The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: The first two posts below comment on different Breakfast Table topics, but we can't help sensing a connection, and a rather cruel blow at the BT participants.
The other important topic is of course Jeopardy. David Franklin's post is here. Kevin Bertsch gives a detailed analysis (we feature the conclusion below) and says "Tucker you still don't understand"--though it seems to us at The Fray that Mr Carlson's words "Blow yourself up before you let yourself squeak by" make it clear he doesn't need to understand strategy. Meriadoc points out that "knowing the answer" doesn't seem to feature in any of this discussion, and there are other comments throughout The Fray.
Elsewhere, Lisa Hancock-Jasie generously gives Tucker Carlson two reasons not to like Rupert Murdoch, and then another two later on.]
I'm aghast at what Carlson and Williams say about their college days. My years at Brown, in physics and then computer science, were the most intensive periods of sustained learning of my life. I guess it's true, very few people go into quantum physics because they can't make it as journalism majors.
--Bob Munck
(To reply, click
here.)
Sure, space colonization isn't getting as much attention as, say, Al Gore's earth tones, or the latest Oprah appearance. No surprise. Columbus' voyage wasn't thought of as important at the time either. That's because the chattering classes, then and now, are more interested in gossip than news. They like to talk about each other, and about the people they fondly imagine they're like, or will be like some day, or at least will have influence over some day.
In all of this, of course, they're mostly wrong. But a close connection to reality has never been the strength of the chattering classes. That's for the boring geeky types who actually change the world.
--A.G.Android
(To reply, click
here.)
[Reaction to
Wednesday's entry:]
In third place, sometimes the right move is to bet everything, sometimes it's to bet nothing, and sometimes you bet part of what you have. David's strategy was perfectly rational, and to have bet everything to avoid appearing 'wimpy' would have been to substitute macho stupidity for brains, which is generally not a winning move on Jeopardy.
--Kevin Bertsch
(To reply, click
here.)
[Reaction to
Tuesday's entry:]
Why do issues like a kiss or Oprah dominate? The answer is because the press, and by this I mean the working press not the pundits, have been reduced to recycling AP wire stories churned out by the same five writers for the same five major papers every day. Facts that don't fit preordained story lines are jettisoned. Al Gore is a liar, that's the story, run with it. George Bush doesn't lie, he's stupid, and his misstatements are just good natured mistakes. This is what passes for journalism. The punditocracy, by which I mean those highly paid folks like your own Tucker and Marjorie who take it upon themselves not to be journalists, but to provide their opinion on everything, whether they are qualified in the subject matter or not, have completely punted in this election. It is they who declared that going on Oprah was a good idea. It is they who decided Bush was a frontrunner before the first vote was cast in Iowa. It is they who have declared Clinton-fatigue a factor. It is they who refuse to delve in any depth into the issues of the day.
Ask not for whom Al Gore kisses, he kisses for thee.
--John Burns
(To reply, click
here.)
[Reaction to
Monday's
entry:]
One key sign that it doesn't look good for Gore is Joe Lieberman's decision to remain in the Senate race in Connecticut. Based on that decision, I suspect that the Dem's internal polling numbers look worse than the public tracking polls. If Lieberman either loses the Vice Presidency or withdraws from the Senate race, the seat would be a shoe-in for the Democrats, while if Gore/Lieberman win, it will be assured for the Republicans. If it looked like Lieberman might be the next Vice President, there would be a lot of pressure on him to withdraw from the Senate race.
--J.Travers
(To reply, click
here.)
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Reader Comments from The Fray:
[Notes from the Fray Editor: The first two posts below comment on different Breakfast Table topics, but we can't help sensing a connection, and a rather cruel blow at the BT participants.
The other important topic is of course Jeopardy. David Franklin's post is here. Kevin Bertsch gives a detailed analysis (we feature the conclusion below) and says "Tucker you still don't understand"--though it seems to us at The Fray that Mr Carlson's words "Blow yourself up before you let yourself squeak by" make it clear he doesn't need to understand strategy. Meriadoc points out that "knowing the answer" doesn't seem to feature in any of this discussion, and there are other comments throughout The Fray.
Elsewhere, Lisa Hancock-Jasie generously gives Tucker Carlson two reasons not to like Rupert Murdoch, and then another two later on.]
I'm aghast at what Carlson and Williams say about their college days. My years at Brown, in physics and then computer science, were the most intensive periods of sustained learning of my life. I guess it's true, very few people go into quantum physics because they can't make it as journalism majors.
--Bob Munck
(To reply, click here.)
Sure, space colonization isn't getting as much attention as, say, Al Gore's earth tones, or the latest Oprah appearance. No surprise. Columbus' voyage wasn't thought of as important at the time either. That's because the chattering classes, then and now, are more interested in gossip than news. They like to talk about each other, and about the people they fondly imagine they're like, or will be like some day, or at least will have influence over some day.
In all of this, of course, they're mostly wrong. But a close connection to reality has never been the strength of the chattering classes. That's for the boring geeky types who actually change the world.
--A.G.Android
(To reply, click here.)
[Reaction to Wednesday's entry:]
In third place, sometimes the right move is to bet everything, sometimes it's to bet nothing, and sometimes you bet part of what you have. David's strategy was perfectly rational, and to have bet everything to avoid appearing 'wimpy' would have been to substitute macho stupidity for brains, which is generally not a winning move on Jeopardy.
--Kevin Bertsch
(To reply, click here.)
[Reaction to Tuesday's entry:]
Why do issues like a kiss or Oprah dominate? The answer is because the press, and by this I mean the working press not the pundits, have been reduced to recycling AP wire stories churned out by the same five writers for the same five major papers every day. Facts that don't fit preordained story lines are jettisoned. Al Gore is a liar, that's the story, run with it. George Bush doesn't lie, he's stupid, and his misstatements are just good natured mistakes. This is what passes for journalism. The punditocracy, by which I mean those highly paid folks like your own Tucker and Marjorie who take it upon themselves not to be journalists, but to provide their opinion on everything, whether they are qualified in the subject matter or not, have completely punted in this election. It is they who declared that going on Oprah was a good idea. It is they who decided Bush was a frontrunner before the first vote was cast in Iowa. It is they who have declared Clinton-fatigue a factor. It is they who refuse to delve in any depth into the issues of the day.
Ask not for whom Al Gore kisses, he kisses for thee.
--John Burns
(To reply, click here.)
[Reaction to Monday's entry:]
One key sign that it doesn't look good for Gore is Joe Lieberman's decision to remain in the Senate race in Connecticut. Based on that decision, I suspect that the Dem's internal polling numbers look worse than the public tracking polls. If Lieberman either loses the Vice Presidency or withdraws from the Senate race, the seat would be a shoe-in for the Democrats, while if Gore/Lieberman win, it will be assured for the Republicans. If it looked like Lieberman might be the next Vice President, there would be a lot of pressure on him to withdraw from the Senate race.
--J.Travers
(To reply, click here.)