Outdoing It

Long ago in a galaxy far, far away when I was much younger we got our serious news from serious sources. The newspapers of a major city provided an objective panorama of what was occurring in the world around us. In Chicago we had four major dailies and each of them published several editions each day. Newspaper trucks roared through the streets with a "thrower" hanging from the tailgate, slinging bundles of fifty papers each out on street corners to the newstands which were our media outlet before the plastic boxes that gobble your quarters and refuse to open to deliver your paper. A guy with a truck-driver cap and a cigar stub in his maw handed you a folded paper and you gave him a nickel.

In-depth coverage came from the weekly news magazines. There were three major ones: Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. They sliced and diced the serious stories and few homes were without a subscription to at least one. They covered essentially the same major stories but their analysis varied and you chose your favorite based upon the writing style and photography.

Things have changed and this week they've accelerated down the slide into oblivion. It started with Time magazine's tacky cover shot of a statuesque blonde woman of questionable intelligence proudly profiled as her son, well beyond the normal stage of weaning, suckles from her left breast while standing upon a chair. The question asked is not whether such delayed maturity is good or normal, but whether we should all be getting our protein from the nearest mammary. Dare I note that it is a conscious attempt at titillation?

Now this:

No, they aren't implying a sexual orientation of the chief executive. No more than the characterization of Bill Clinton as our first "Black" president. 

Read the story here:  Newsweek Enters the Sensationalist Wars

If you've been watching the interview clip, and it would be difficult to have missed it, you've already noted the carefully nuanced language. The Bamster was more than nudged into coming out on the topic. Joe Biden and Arne Duncan blurted out the issue ahead of their leader and he was now forced to elaborate. 

He has "evolved" over time. See, that keeps it from being a flip-flop on a major moral question. He learned from his wife, family, friends and campaign finance bundlers where he should be standing. It is his personal view, not a statement of policy initiative. That gives him waffle room to do nothing until once again pushed by events which get away from his control. He can hold deep convictions but continue to govern in whatever manner he deems necessary to keep his poll numbers from plunging further. 

But, maybe he should have paid a bit more attention to the two-to-one vote on marriage in North Carolina last week. Or maybe he should go back read the legislation enacted but not enforced a few years ago called the Defense of Marriage Act. 

Of course not. He's not really bound by laws which are inconvenient to him. 

And on the news magazine front, I can now comfortably pick up a copy of the Sun or Enquirer at the grocery checkout with full confidence that it is not much different than a well-respected news magazine like Time or Newsweek.