I figure every now and again we need to poke fun, not at the media, but at the people they interview. And not just public figures either. Occasionally (or all too often, depending) some dumb bastard will be interviewed and reveal in his quote that he’s completely disconnected from reality.
And not just in the lighter side of the paper, either. I’m going to start with one bang on the front page on the Washington Post’s website. This is from 'Economy Provides No Boost To Bush. Well and good: it’s a story about how the positive economic news isn’t showing up as improved numbers for the President.
But it does contain this little nugget towards the end:
Emphasis mine.
Now, I favored (and still favor) a war (such as it is) on terrorists. And I supported the war in Afghanistan. I disapprove of the war in Iraq.
But this is astonishing. I had no idea that the only thing standing between me and living in a Islamic theocracy called the USA was the election of George W Bush.
whew
Anyway, please share your astonishingly foolish things people say in the press. You know in your heart of hearts that you see such things each and every day.
And I put this in the pit so that, if some of the things are really over the top we can collectively say, ‘Damn…that’s stupid.’
At work yesterday evening, we attempted to turn on a “Simpsons” rerun on the local Fox affiliate, only to find it had been pre-empted for the transfer of Ronald Reagan’s body to the Capitol.
Nothing was going on-everyone was still getting into their places. The camera shifted amongst crowd scenes, while the announcer, who sounded like Dan Rather, did what was best described as stream-of-consciousness.
[paraphrase]
“You can’t see it right now, but there’s a pool down there. Right now, there’s a dog in it-can’t say I blame it, it’s hot outside.”
And the camera cut to the dog. It cut away from the Capitol to a cocker spaniel, which was cute, yet hardly seemed relevant to the state funeral preparations.
That exemplar of United Nations competence, Hans Blix, recently said that he thinks that people from every country in the world should be allowed to vote in the US presidential election.
During the election known as Indecision 2000, a news station went out to the streets of Miami, where crowds were getting louder and angrier. One man, who was black, angrily spit at the reporter “Read your history! The Democrat party was the party that supported slavery! If Gore wins, we’re going to have slavery in this country again!”
‘…as we all know, the majority of the fans are white America. And if you just had a couple of white guys in there, you might get them a little excited.’
Larry Bird, on why the NBA needs more white superstars
[quote]
That exemplar of United Nations competence, Hans Blix, recently said that he thinks that people from every country in the world should be allowed to vote in the US presidential election.
It doesn’t get much dumber than that.To be fair, that was a brief comment in one of those quick Q&A “bullet point” type interviews - I don’t think he genuinely advocates it.
NY Times:*What do you make of the presidential race? * Hans Blix:I think maybe we foreigners should have the right to vote in your next election, since we are so dependent on you. Blix interview
This is unlikely to be at all familiar to non Aussies, but we too have a Federal election looming at the end of this year. To cut a long story very short, a member of the Greens Party, Peter Garrett, has been snaffled by the Labor Party (sort of like the Democrats) to stand for election in a safe Labor seat in Sydney, to the consternation and dismay of grassroots/rank-and-file members of that particular seat. Garrett is famous for his lead-singer role of Midnite Oil, and his later environmental activism here in Aus. He has no apparent connection to the ‘seat’ where he is now standing as a candidate to represent the residents.
On the telly tonight though, Garrett was defending his critics/appointment by saying that **he played his first gig at a pub in the electorate. **
Geez, Pete, most of us thought you might have been a bit above ‘playing politics’. We trusted you *because * you refused to play the party game. And here you are spouting bullshit like “I played a gig at the local pub 20 years ago, so therefore I am qualified to represent the locals as their parliamentarian now”? And you wonder why we might be a bit pissed off?
Fuck off Garrett…When come back, bring credibility you moron.
My husband was telling me about this this morning. Judging by the white guys with whom I work, if they got any more excited about basketball their heads might explode!
Interestingly enough, I remember an episode of Law & Order in which a white, highschool basketball player’s father remarked something along the lines that the fans were just dying for another Larry Bird.
Well, this example is not so much stupid as insensitive…
Yesterday, while watching the goings on in D.C., they cut to “their man” in France (can’t remember who he was) and they asked him about the press covering Reagan’s death. The man replied that “just today” the newspapers started to carry articles on Reagan’s passing, since it was pretty much no surprise that “people here didn’t like him very much”. :eek:
If France didn’t like Reagan, why’d they bother to interview THAT guy?! Sheesh. How rude.
A bit of background - the London mayoral elections take place today. The three main candidates are Ken Livingstone (Labour; the current mayor); Steven Norris (Conservative); and Simon Hughes (Liberal Democrat).
Now, in the papers yesterday it was widely reported that Livingstone and Norris were neck-and-neck in the lead in the polls. However, the Lib Dems took out an advert in the London Evening Standard saying “It’s a 2-horse race!!!” between Livingstone and Hughes. “The Conservative can’t win!!!” it screamed.
It illustrated this with a bar graph showing 51% of the vote to Livingstone, and 49% to Hughes. Blimey! Norris really can’t win! He’s got no support at all!.
Er, yes. The small print under the graph said “Figures from a YouGov opinion poll which asked: ‘If Livingstone and Hughes are the last two candidates, which would you prefer?’”
I am still unsure whether this was a joke or a spoof, and I’ve been whooshed, or if they really are that monumentally stupid. At the moment, monumentally stupid is the odds-on favourite.
Fact: A very sad number of people will vote for who they think will win. Doesn’t matter who it is, as long as they vote for “the winning team”. I can guarantee you that implying that Norris can’t win will cost the man quite a few votes.
A few days ago, we were listening to radio coverage of the resignation of George Tenent. The announcer referred to the resignation as “Surprising, but not unexpected.” I’m sorry, what now?
She later referred to the “totally unexpected resignation.” Um, wasn’t it you saying it was “not unexpected” a few minutes ago?
This was a local sports guy, not someone anyone was interviewing.
Anyway, he was going on about the Lakers v. Pistons game. I don’t remember exactly what he said but it had something to do with Dr Dre and Eminem, and the fact that the Pistons and Lakers weren’t so chummy.
I can forgive media personalities for saying stupid things during live broadcasts - like the Reagan funeral - where, sometimes, you’re just gonna have dead air, and it’s their job to fill it. Well, if nothing’s going on, what’re they gonna fill it with?
I’m confused. If what they wanted to know was how France was reacting to Reagan’s deathe then THAT guy seem to have told them. That’s his job.
If you’re suggesting there shouldn’t have been anything negative said about Reagan…well, an ordinary guy should have his loved ones mourne for him, he shouldn’t have strangers weighing in on his life…but and ordinary guy doesn’t get a natioanal day mourning and a lying in state either. A President is not an ordinary person.
The international reaction to his death is a perfectly valid journalistic question. “They don’t like him” (as far as covering his death) is a perfectly legitimit answer.
P_T…I have to doubt the America’s press will note Chirac’s passing much at all, do you?
