THE NEWS HACK'S CREED:
I know more than you.
I make lots more money than you.
I'm smarter than you.
I'm sexier than you.
I appear on TV all the time.
I work ten minutes a day.
I rule the universe.
I'm going to live forever.
You are an idiot.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 2:
A lie isn't a lie when it tells THE TRUTH.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 3:
I've come to realize that the looseness of the journalistic life, the seeming laxity of the newsroom, is an illusion. Yes, there's informality and there's humor, but beneath the surface lies something deadly serious. It is a code. Sometimes the code is not even written down, but it is deeply believed in. And, when violated, it is enforced with tribal ferocity.
--JOHN "OMERTA" CARROLL.
THE NEWS HACK'S CREED, No. 4:
News isn't news when we don't report it.
PERMALINKS:
THE NEWS HACKS' DICTIONARY
THE EUGENE DAVID GLOSSARY
AMERICA'S MOST UNINTENTIONALLY FUNNY WEB SITE!
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Naked, pink-flesh figures were propped up on the wall behind him. They wore the masks of the famous: Ronald Reagan; President Bush and the first lady, Laura Bush; Vice President Dick Cheney; the presidential adviser Karl Rove; and the conservative commentators Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. Some had penises, some didn't. You could hear people asking whose was bigger. Why did Mr. Limbaugh and Mr. Rove have breasts instead? And what about Ms. Coulter? Like the versatile Greek prophet Tiresias, she had been granted breasts and a penis, but she bested him, she had both at once.
Mr. Papa is a tornado of a writer. So it was refreshing when he began the show with memories of his adolescence. We're all under some kind of blight as adolescents. His blight was Ronald Reagan, the man who "hounded my life for eight years." In the Rude Pundit's world, Mr. Reagan was the cruel patriarch who set the world on its downward spiral of greed and aggression.
What followed was a set of free-form riffs, separated by blackouts. If you have qualms, prepare to feel them now. I felt fine most of the time, and so it seemed did the rest of the audience. I feel less fine trying to describe the show, because obscenities I am not allowed to quote here burst from almost all his sentences. [COURAGEOUS! -- ED.]
Take the Rude Pundit's fantasy of what John Kerry should have said in the presidential debate when Mr. Bush accused him of being a liberal. Mr. Papa hijacks the Republican language of warrior-strength and makes it grotesque. How do we liberals show we're strong, he asks, and answers firmly: "We have to rape Republicans. We have to show them this is what liberals are." Savvy candidates like Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton will benefit, he adds: "Then Hillary can say: 'I am not a liberal. Liberals are people who rape Republicans. I have never raped a Republican.'"....
I still enjoyed the show. It's just that I enjoy his blog more. As a new fan, I also liked the fact that several members of the Listserv I belong to sent me links to their favorite Rude Pundit columns and discussions of his work that read like short, smart reviews. Those are the kinds of shrewd, passionate fans mainstream theaters would kill to attract. [EMPHASIS ADDED.] They'll have to take a lot more risks first.
We are edified to hear someone is encouraging HIS HOLINESS PINCH and His crew to rape Republicans, and that His minion so devoutly approves. I suspect if THE PAPER OF RE-CORD had a PUBLIC EDI-TOR he might have to see a doctor about his hearing.