Posted 5:18 PM by Gene

Richard Cohen demonstrates why our reliance on hacks to do one thing and only one thing damages our culture, and no more so than with the career effete snobs of film. I suspect this quote will NOT appear above the title:

It's impossible to summarize the plot of "Syriana." Most reviewers have called it complicated, often using the term as a compliment. I can tell you from firsthand experience that you will never know what's going on. It's doubtful the screenwriter-director himself, Stephen Gaghan, can tell you. The best I can do is quote from the New York Times review by A.O. Scott, who says the movie is an "intriguing narrative about oil, terrorism, money and power." Scott, incidentally, loved the movie.

But the reason I include "Syriana" in my imaginary time capsule is not its complicated plot but its simplistic politics. Again, I turn to Scott: "Someone is sure to complain that the world doesn't really work the way it does in 'Syriana': that oil companies, law firms and Middle Eastern regimes are not really engaged in semiclandestine collusion. . . . O.K., maybe. Call me naive -- or paranoid, or liberal, or whatever the favored epithet is this week -- but I'm inclined to give Mr. Gaghan the benefit of the doubt." As you can see, movie critics spend a lot of time in the dark.

To be sure, his take on this movie is as fresh as his take on politics is usually stale; but we can't expect the ad-blurbists to write a good political column because their outlook is 100% stale. Mr. Cohen has said in so many words why we cannot trust the blurbists, and sadly, by extension most news hacks: from long training and experience they have their heads buried in CW sand, and are getting in deeper.