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During her training days at the Daily News in the 1980s, I thought that smarmy Robin Abcarian learned better how to be a professional journalist than she showed in her ham-handed story on the front page of this morning’s Los Angeles Times that should serve as her job application for the Obama White House. Driving from the Valley into the city, she must have developed an intellectual flat tire and forgotten how to practice subtlety, an art out of favor at the blatantly partisan Old Times.
Playing the role of a little girl sitting on a curb and sobbing because her ice cream cone has melted, Ms. Abcarian behaved in the manner of a fluttery-eyed teenager with a crush, a flag-waving soldier in the Barrel-Chested Boobettes-for-Barack army instead of as a grown-up, in fact aging, girl journalist.
Her failing: She crafted an ain’t-that-a-shame story, saying that conservatives have been criticizing Michelle (Billy Carter) Obama over her outspoken speeches. Entirely rehash, there is no apparent original reporting, one of the worst sins a journalist can commit.
My golly, Murgatroyd. Conservatives criticizing left-wing extremists. What will those lightweight ladies at the Old Times think of next? This is news? Surely Ms. Abcarian has heard of the Lindbergh kidnapping, or that James Garfield may not survive yesterday’s assassination attempt. Did Robin Baby know that half of the teams in baseball won last night and the other half lost?
Unfit for This Town
I mean, the Culver City News and the Culver City Observer would have rejected the Abcarian piece for its schoolgirl amateurishness. But as the Old Times sinks deeper into debt and slinks closer to the edge of the print media cliff with its crazy new Napoleonic publisher, Ms. Abcarian’s shallow Job Wanted piece passes for news in these stressful days. Helping Ms. Abacrian land her next position could be the only justification for running the story.
As the Old Times continues downsizing, practically by the hour, here was a chance for Ms. Abcarian to burnish her liberal credentials while hoping, with a sly wink, to catch the eye of a recruiter on the Obama staff.
Had she put a sock in her giggling and told one of the fascinating back stories that shivering liberal journalists avoid because it is strongly unflattering, then the drooling Ms. Abcarian would have had a tale worthy of Page 1. She could have related the passionately ignored roles that play out within the Obama circle, where high-stepping Gen. Michelle runs the war and Pvt. Barack submits to her rule.
As I wove through the story, I had to check the cover to make sure I had not accidentally grabbed a copy of “Teen Boo-Hoo” at the newsstand this morning.
Obama Ain’t the Only One Shlepping Hope
But sensible Americans should not despair.
Even though virtually every newspaper except the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times is openly in the tank for Mr. Obama, and even though every television network except Fox is covering his campaign with tears of joy dampening their ducts, their audience is more sophisticated. Americans long ago learned to distinguish truth from baloney glitz.
Historic fact: With the most influential media on earth fawning over them daily, clodhopping Democrats thought up creative ways to lose 7 of the last 10 Presidential elections.
