[img]1|left|Ari Noonan||no_popup[/img]When the Los Angeles Times has a child-sized mission to cover, the Juvenile Editor whistles for Jimmy (Very) Rainey.
Like many left-wingers, Very is not sure what he believes.
But by golly, Murgatroyd, he is passionate about his barely concealed confusion.
Since Very modestly appears to know less about any contemporary political issue than any journalist since William Randolph Hearst died, he usually draws one of two types of assignments:
• When smarminess is called for, and
• When the subject is climate change/global warming/global cooling/anti-freeze or nuclear freeze.
On the same day Very drew his assignment, Jim Newton, the weak-swinging editor of the Editorial Pages, showed Very a preview of a Saturday editorial about why President Reagan should not be on the $50 bill.
Hey, Let’s Confuse as a Team
Mr. Newton offered it as an illustration of how to confuse the Rube readership with bollaxed reasoning. We will shortly get back to that weighty subject.
As for Very, since losing track last September of the definition of “smarminess,” he has been restricted to writing about climate change.
The Juvenile Editor said that Very was chosen because, as the lightest weight, he would be the most believable member of the editorial staff when publicly pleading ignorance (or Bass-ism, as it is known in the state Assembly).
For last Saturday’s edition, Very was asked to write an essay ridiculing the skeptics of climate change. “Sure, Bass,” he said. “I mean ‘Boss.’” He was so good at it he almost got himself thrown out of the Hopelessly Confused Liberal Journalists Fraternity.
The Times later revealed Very gained the semi-coveted assignment because he met the minimum qualifications for posing as a climate change maven:
He had few facts in hand, the better to confuse readers who value truth, he was deemed impressive at name-calling as a distraction aimed at the serious readers, and he is greenly jealous of journalists who make their livings online while his future dangles daily by a thinning thread.
Three times I read his essay on the front of the Calendar section, and he sounded like Al Gore with a stutter and one ear. The inclever headline read “This debate grows heated.”
I was going to call the Culver City Police Dept. to see if Don Pedersen had a detective he could spare to unscramble the fibbing and crisscrossed reasoning that Very used throughout. I don’t know whether he was trying to prove climate change is legitimate, that it is the hoax of the century (as serious scientists believe) or whether Al Gore was a Lutheran in Baptist’s clothing.
Very’s fireproof theory must be:
When you write that poorly, the editors would not dare fire you because that would suggest they take you seriously.
Chances Are Not 50-50
Even if the masthead is hidden, you usually can tell when you are reading a left-wing newspaper. The reasoning is as thin as gruel or as absent as Swish Obama’s college grades.
The Times argued, in an editorial last Saturday, against replacing U.S. Grant on the $50 bill with a likeness of President Reagan.
Opposition to the proposal certainly is valid. But, like so many of our liberal pals, the Times leaves town in a disagreement every time the question “why” is asked. It puzzles them.
We are against it, liberals say, while stomping their classily shod feet.
Being eminently reasonable, you ask why. The Timesman yawns, leans back, removes his sox and shrugs. “They never told me what to say,” he answers blankly.
Once again, as with Very, I read the editorial multiple times without ever being able to identify, with precision, their objection.
An imaginative person could conclude that the tail-wagging editorialist must have been suffering from an overdose of bottled water. Or global warming.
The editorialist, fresh from an anti-windshield wiper campaign, never quite says why replacing Mr. Grant with Mr. Reagan is a bad idea. But again, as in Very’s case, the editorialist is slicker than rained-on garbage with smarmy concepts.
Just guessing, his objections appear to be three: That Mr. Reagan does not qualify as a hero and that it is too early to judge him worthy of placement on any dollar bill.
The third objection: He is a darned Republican. Ooooh, gooey.
Another triumph for journalistic maturity. Right, Swish?
