Team Obama Blames Washington
A new Vanity Fair article, describing how Rahm Emanuel hopes to transcend partisan politics, should score high on the unintentional comedy scale.
Bill Simmons, "The Sports Guy," made a major contribution to American culture when he established the Unintentional Comedy Rating scale to rank "those moments when something or someone cracks you up... even though that wasn't necessarily the original intention." While it might be hard to outrank Corey Haim's E! True Hollywood Story, and the wedding video of Liza Minnelli and David Gest, it looks like Vanity Fair is about to give them a run for their money.
In an article titled, "Washington, We Have a Problem," the September issue of Vanity Fair will investigate the ugliness of Washington politics and the Obama administration's efforts to transcend it.
That's right. Ten thousand words explaining how Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod hope to transcend partisan politics and the nasty treatment of your political opponents.
There really isn't any sense in challenging this allegation. It is hard to believe that those who mouth this perennial complaint about the ugly tactics of the opposition actually believe it.
Still, I for one look forward to reading the piece. The Unintentional Comedy in Todd Purdum's piece might make this a classic in the genre of cut-throat liberal Washington insider lament for a time when the left was ascendant and all others shut up. The Unintentional Comedy rating of Rahm "Dead Fish" Emanuel emoting about the lack of civility and spike in partisanship in Washington since he cut his teeth during the Clinton Administration should be through the roof. And Valerie Jarrett's analysis might hold even greater promise. In the preview to Todd Purdum's article, the editors write "Valerie Jarrett says she looks back wistfully to a time when credible people could put a stamp of reliability on information and opinion: 'Walter Cronkite would get on and say the truth, and people believed the media.'"
Seriously? Jarrett pines for a time when there was a single filter that determined what news got to the American people? This is really good stuff, especially when one considers that back in the day, a press secretary actually had to work to get a story by speaking with Cronkite and convincing him of the veracity of his claims. Presumably, this would follow with a real investigation showing the press flack's story to be objectively verifiable. Today, the White House can just send administration talking points to Mika Brzezinski on her blackberry, and Mika will read them as gospel on the morning news.
Whether or not Rahm and Valerie take this stuff seriously, Vanity Fair appears to have bought it. We will see, but I don't expect too much push back on the left's political tactics, the ugliness of the progressive media, the cozy relationship between liberal pols and their mainstream press advocates, or the silliness of holding up the Cronkite era - where citizens sheepishly accepted as fact what one flawed man determined to be newsworthy -- as a model.
The lack of self-awareness and ironic detachment that this article promises is Unintentional Comedy Gold.
