Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

Goodbye to '05 and the NYT

Pleasures are always temporary, and a pleasure I used to have was reading the Sunday NY Times.

During the '90s, I'd read it cover to cover, or rather first page to last. I stopped around '98, around the time it started becoming ridiculous.

But I thought today I'd treat myself for old time's sake though it turned out to be a pleaure only a masochist would enjoy. In the second sentence of the first article I came across, a front page story about George Bush's vacation, the "news" writer states of Crawford, "He never even ventured into the little town of 600, not even to the cheeseburger joint he often uses as a political tool to show that he is in touch with his neighbors."

Nice little jab, and nice that he got to it so quickly. I suppose for that to be fact, George Bush must've said at some point, "I often use that cheeseburger joint as a political tool to show I'm in touch with my neighbors." Absent that, the writer is taking liberties, as apparently is the journalist's privilege, while at the same time adding to the cynicism of daily life. With the press and Bush, he's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't, which certainly makes the presidency a way to age quickly. I'm glad the W doesn't read the NY Times - I wouldn't either if I were him. And it's certainly not surprising that a proportionately small percentage of journalists believe in God; the mindset for a journalist reading the gospels must be one of "what's in this for God? He's got to be perpetrating the biggest scam in history."

It's true politicians are usually venal and far too compromising for our tastes, and they have to do things to ensure their electability. But I wonder if newspapers and politicians don't make each other worse. Politicians do things that make newspapers cynical. Newspapers, corrosively cynical, make politicians do things in order to serve appearances.

Still, is it too much to ask to back up assertions made on the front page of the "world's newspaper"? And to stop mind-reading?

Meanwhile, I'll stop reading.