We are reminded of the importance of skepticism in journalists with the death of Robert Novak.
A government that separates and pits group against group is doomed. Fundamentals are abandoned. Beliefs discarded. Values modified. Entitlement rules. Hop on to the train.
The organizer runs as a consensus builder and promptly abandons the campaign rhetoric to follow the embedded, clueless and destructive leadership of his party.
Who will raise the questions? Who will use their megaphones? Who will use the big budgets to challenge the government? Who will do the research and analysis? ABC? PBS? NBC? CNN?
They lack the cojones. They don’t even get the basic requirement of their job – question, question, question. Be skeptical. Raise doubts. Derail the train. Be unpopular. Be nasty when necessary.
The gang plays to small sound bites and brief visuals. They cram 8 or 10 segments into their news shows when they need to address basic, fundamental issues in depth. Jerry Springer runs the editorial content. Find the silliness. Capture the weird. Cult of the personality. Get the big names. Hours for BSpears and MJackson and self esteem. Minutes, sometimes seconds, usually nothing, for debt and deficits.
Where is the analysis of who wrote HR 3200? HR 1? Where were the skeptics when GWBush and AGreenspan were doubling the national debt? Who challenged the massive and unproductive “intelligence gathering” fiasco run out of Washington DC? It continues. The complete lack of strategic modeling in international affairs? Where is the analysis of the destruction of Detroit? California? Philadelphia? Chicago? Who questions anything now? What happened to the entire state of Michigan?
When was the last time you read an essay about the need for all public pensions to move to defined contribution plans? What political party supports such a move? What journalist even understands the issue?
If you challenge these basics, question the fundamentals you may not get that wink, that nod, that interview, that special phone call.
Your parent company may find itself shut out of the next big stimulus plan. Then what?
Robert Novak saw it clear; wrote/spoke it straight. Roots in Joliet, Illinois. He loved a free society. He did not drink the kool-aid and he didn't suffer the fools who served it.
Who will do his job when there is no one left to even set the example? Train the young.
Who will question when it is uncomfortable to question?
Who will challenge and provoke the gasbags?
Who will replace Bob Novak?
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