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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Saturday, October 27, 2007
From the August, 1964 issue of American Heritage, PILLHEAD -- in 1840, in the guise of one Charles Ogle, a W-HIG Representative from Pennsylvania, solemnizing the "imperial" living space of DEMOCRAT president Martin Van Buren, before the House:
And now … let us enter [the] palace, and survey its spacious courts, its gorgeous banqueting halls, its sumptuous drawing rooms, its glittering and dazzling saloons, with all their magnificent and sumptuous array of gold and silver, crimson and orange, blue and violet, screens of Ionic columns, marble mantels, with Italian black and gold fronts, gilt eagle cornices, rich cut glass and gilt chandeliers, suspended by beautiful Grecian chains, gilt eaglehead candelabras.…
I cannot forbear … to read you a description of the great banqueting hall, commonly called the “East Room” … [Reads from the United States Telegraph, which he terms “the Court Journal of the day”]. … who can deny that this room, intended for the comfort of our democratic Chief Magistrate, is adorned with regal splendor far above any of the grand saloons at Buckingham Palace, Carlton House, or Windsor Castle? … Brilliant and princely, however, as the East Room had been fitted up by the late President, it was destined to have its … powers of attraction increased, by the exquisite taste of its present occupant. … The former [wall] paper was a “fine lemon color” … but Mr. Van Buren had doubtless been apprized, either by one of his sons, who at the time was on most familiar intercourse with, if not a resident at, the Court of St. James, or, perhaps, by a more formal communication through the Lord High Chamberlain of Her Majesty’s Household, that wall-paper of the “lemon color” had, during the progress of the last year, become unfashionable. … Hence, Mr. Van Buren … issued his royal mandate on the first day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine, that the “paper of the lemon color, with a rich cloth border,” should be forthwith taken off the broad walls of the Eastern room, and that “a rich, chaste, and beautiful paper” should be substituted. … Sir, EVERY PLAIN REPUBLICAN will now find a set of chairs in that splendid and royal saloon, which took the round sum of SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS of the PEOPLE’S CASH to pay for. … Martin Van Buren -- plain, republican hardhanded-democratic-locofoco Martin Van Buren—has it now garnished with gold framed mirrors “as big as a barn-door,” to behold his plain republican self in.
Having paid our respects to the “East Room,” let us … take a view of what is, at the present day, called the “BLUE ELLIPTICAL SALOON.” … This apartment … in its beautiful shape, rich French furniture, showy drapery, costly gilded ornaments, and general arrangements … has frequently been pronounced, in the judgment of the best connoisseurs, the choicest room of the palace. … furnished very much after the style of the most brilliant drawingrooms at the Tuilleries. … Mr. Van Buren … expended, in “improving” the furniture of that room, during the first ten months of his presidency, the sum of $1,805.55 of the PEOPLE’S CASH.…
Suppose, sir, after you shall have returned to the charming prairies of Illinois, some plain, honest, republican “Sucker” should inquire what use a real genuine hard-handed locofoco democrat like Mr. Van Buren can have for silk covered pillows, footstools and TABOURETS in the “Blue Elliptical Saloon?” How would you reply to that honest Sucker’s interrogatory? Wouldn’t you acknowledge yourself fairly stumped? But suppose he would ask what sort of animals these TABOURETS, or TABBY-CATS, are? … I should like to hear the honest opinions not only of the plain, republican “Suckers,” but also of the “Hoosiers,” of the “Wolverines,” and of the “Buckeyes,” about these tabbycats....
The author of the surrounding piece, Gerald Carson, notes:
The day after the speech was delivered, Levi Lincoln, a Whig colleague of Ogle, apologized to the House of Representatives for the low blow and cited official documents to show that less money had been spent for the upkeep of the Executive Mansion during Van Buren’s term than during that of any previous occupant. Ogle’s real purpose was in fact evident in his suggestion, made with mock anxiety, that the appropriation under discussion might be used to buy Van Buren a throne and crown.
Although the Washington Globe could refer at the time to “the … unscrupulous falsehoods of that dirtiest of all Federal tools, Ogle,” the lesson was not lost upon succeeding administrations. The question did not come up in the Presidency of Van Buren’s successor, William Henry Harrison, since the latter died within a month after taking office, but in Tyler’s time caution still prevailed: the newspapers called the White House “the public shabby house.”
Which proves two things: 1. There was never a VALHALLA of polite public discourse in the Congress, SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX, and 2. The PILLHEAD of 1840 didn't need 10,000 radio stations.
And now … let us enter [the] palace, and survey its spacious courts, its gorgeous banqueting halls, its sumptuous drawing rooms, its glittering and dazzling saloons, with all their magnificent and sumptuous array of gold and silver, crimson and orange, blue and violet, screens of Ionic columns, marble mantels, with Italian black and gold fronts, gilt eagle cornices, rich cut glass and gilt chandeliers, suspended by beautiful Grecian chains, gilt eaglehead candelabras.…
I cannot forbear … to read you a description of the great banqueting hall, commonly called the “East Room” … [Reads from the United States Telegraph, which he terms “the Court Journal of the day”]. … who can deny that this room, intended for the comfort of our democratic Chief Magistrate, is adorned with regal splendor far above any of the grand saloons at Buckingham Palace, Carlton House, or Windsor Castle? … Brilliant and princely, however, as the East Room had been fitted up by the late President, it was destined to have its … powers of attraction increased, by the exquisite taste of its present occupant. … The former [wall] paper was a “fine lemon color” … but Mr. Van Buren had doubtless been apprized, either by one of his sons, who at the time was on most familiar intercourse with, if not a resident at, the Court of St. James, or, perhaps, by a more formal communication through the Lord High Chamberlain of Her Majesty’s Household, that wall-paper of the “lemon color” had, during the progress of the last year, become unfashionable. … Hence, Mr. Van Buren … issued his royal mandate on the first day of July, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-nine, that the “paper of the lemon color, with a rich cloth border,” should be forthwith taken off the broad walls of the Eastern room, and that “a rich, chaste, and beautiful paper” should be substituted. … Sir, EVERY PLAIN REPUBLICAN will now find a set of chairs in that splendid and royal saloon, which took the round sum of SIX HUNDRED DOLLARS of the PEOPLE’S CASH to pay for. … Martin Van Buren -- plain, republican hardhanded-democratic-locofoco Martin Van Buren—has it now garnished with gold framed mirrors “as big as a barn-door,” to behold his plain republican self in.
Having paid our respects to the “East Room,” let us … take a view of what is, at the present day, called the “BLUE ELLIPTICAL SALOON.” … This apartment … in its beautiful shape, rich French furniture, showy drapery, costly gilded ornaments, and general arrangements … has frequently been pronounced, in the judgment of the best connoisseurs, the choicest room of the palace. … furnished very much after the style of the most brilliant drawingrooms at the Tuilleries. … Mr. Van Buren … expended, in “improving” the furniture of that room, during the first ten months of his presidency, the sum of $1,805.55 of the PEOPLE’S CASH.…
Suppose, sir, after you shall have returned to the charming prairies of Illinois, some plain, honest, republican “Sucker” should inquire what use a real genuine hard-handed locofoco democrat like Mr. Van Buren can have for silk covered pillows, footstools and TABOURETS in the “Blue Elliptical Saloon?” How would you reply to that honest Sucker’s interrogatory? Wouldn’t you acknowledge yourself fairly stumped? But suppose he would ask what sort of animals these TABOURETS, or TABBY-CATS, are? … I should like to hear the honest opinions not only of the plain, republican “Suckers,” but also of the “Hoosiers,” of the “Wolverines,” and of the “Buckeyes,” about these tabbycats....
The author of the surrounding piece, Gerald Carson, notes:
The day after the speech was delivered, Levi Lincoln, a Whig colleague of Ogle, apologized to the House of Representatives for the low blow and cited official documents to show that less money had been spent for the upkeep of the Executive Mansion during Van Buren’s term than during that of any previous occupant. Ogle’s real purpose was in fact evident in his suggestion, made with mock anxiety, that the appropriation under discussion might be used to buy Van Buren a throne and crown.
Although the Washington Globe could refer at the time to “the … unscrupulous falsehoods of that dirtiest of all Federal tools, Ogle,” the lesson was not lost upon succeeding administrations. The question did not come up in the Presidency of Van Buren’s successor, William Henry Harrison, since the latter died within a month after taking office, but in Tyler’s time caution still prevailed: the newspapers called the White House “the public shabby house.”
Which proves two things: 1. There was never a VALHALLA of polite public discourse in the Congress, SKNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNX, and 2. The PILLHEAD of 1840 didn't need 10,000 radio stations.