Mouthbreathing…cleaner than the MSM alternative
What worries me, though, is that we’re seeing the “democratization” of politics, in the most literal sense of the word: The people—the great idiocratic mass of mouth-breathers out there frantically swiping the drool off their keyboards as they Google around for “dirt”—are running the campaigns now. There aren’t war rooms anymore, directed by parties with smart, educated, responsible adults in charge—it’s Hobbes’ state of nature as imagined by Mike Judge. Andrew Potter Ottawa Citizen
Having written for Potter’s dead tree paper I am a bit surprised to be characterized as a drooling mouth breather. But, hey, it was freelance.
The funny part is the idea that a war room which included people like Scott “Beer and Popcorn” Reid or the Lying Jackal would be held up as an example. War rooms in my experience are staffed by careerists – some are educated, some are smart, few are both. In that sense they resemble newsrooms and I suspect that is what Potter is driving at.
Blogging is entirely self selected – if you want to blog you can. But if you want to work in a newsroom or a war room you have to have blown a lot of dickheads on the way up. Goes with the territory and is passed off as “experience” or seasoning.
Having been on their knees for so long, MSM journos and assorted war room flacks just hate the idea that bloggers can significantly influence elections and policy without ever having had to put in the time on the slurp ramp. And they hate it even more as their circulation and viewership craters and people stop paying attention to the BS churned by the war rooms.
Democracy’s a bitch eh, Andy.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:33 am
Yay the comments work again!
September 30th, 2008 at 11:05 am
I wonder if he thought the bloggers would publicly rebut him?
Great rebut Jay.
September 30th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
We also have to admit that just because he is wrong it does not mean the opposite is true.
September 30th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I agree with Potter. I miss the days when smart, educated, responsible adults were running the campaigns, alerting Canadians to the prospect of troops on street corners, back-room abortions, and the death of Canada as we know it if Harper got his hands on the machinery of power.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
In the US, the people hate the government; in Canada, the government hates the people.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
“it’s Hobbes’ state of nature as imagined by Mike Judge”{
In other words, people without Parliamentary Press Gallery passes are running around the House of Commons with scissors. Potter wears his underwear outside his pants on this one.
September 30th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
First quote in the piece craps on the New Democrats; second one craps on the Tories. And that’s all. Uh, not that he’s telling you how to vote or anything.
October 2nd, 2008 at 6:45 am
Sadly, too many mouth breathers do take democracy literally, it’s not a plutocracy yet, much to the detriment of Andy’s megalomania.