From: Jim Meyer
Sent: Dec 21, 2008 4:34 PM
To: jwhitlock@kcstar.com
Subject: Newspapers--Who Needs Them?
Newspapers--Who Needs Them?
I don't.
I'm very happy that American newspapers are folding
like so many circus tents, Mr. Whitlock. Because whether you choose to
acknowledge it or not, you people in the media are getting exactly what
you deserve. And your December 21st column is a perfect illustration of
why this is happening.
In the words of George (the father of Mitt) Romney,
"There is nothing more vulnerable than entrenched success." This is
because, as Governor Romney the Elder went on to explain, entrenched
success breeds arrogance. And with arrogance comes an inability and/or an
unwillingness to accurately acknowledge and effectively correct faults,
both individual and collective.
If you want to--and are even capable of--making an
honest and dispassionate analysis of what's wrong with your "industry",
Mr. Whitlock, you need only look at the just-completed Presidential
election cycle. The coverage of the 2008 Presidential election campaign
was so horribly one-sided that it set new lows in what the eminent radio
talk show host Rush Limbaugh correctly terms "journalistic malpractice."
And Mr. Limbaugh's equally esteemed colleague in talk radio, Sean Hannity,
has just as accurately noted that history will record the year 2008 as
"the year American journalism died."
I realize that as a black man, you're celebrating
and anticipating with bated breath B Hussein Obama's impending accession
to the highest elective office in the United States. But if you were the
least bit honest, which, (chuckle), you would acknowledge that Obama owes
his election "victory" entirely to your colleagues in the media, who
basically provided cover for him, effectively shielding his unsavory
associations, his anti-American--and potentially disastrous--public policy
views and all his other faults from public view for twenty months as he
campaigned for the Presidency.
If your colleagues on the "serious news" side of the
Kansas City Star had given Obama even one ten-billionth the
scrutiny they gave someone such as Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, he would
never have won the election. It's highly doubtful that he would even have
carried his home state. Seriously. The Star and other media
outlets sent a veritable army of reporters to the tiny village of Wasilla,
Alaska, to rummage through Governor Palin's school records, her
garbage, her lingerie drawer and who knows what else in order to find
anything they could use to paint her as an individual who was totally
unfit for the second-highest elective office in America.
In the end, the media army found nothing of
substance that they could use against Governor Palin. But that didn't
stop you people--and your leftist compatriots in the entertainment
establishment, as well--from contemptuously and viciously attacking and
smearing Governor Palin with some of the vilest and most shameful slurs
and innuendo imaginable. All the while, someone with even less executive
experience than Governor Palin, and whose faults are very real, and not
imaginary like Governor Palin's, completely escaped any kind of scrutiny
by your colleagues on the "serious news" side. None of the negative
allegations about Obama mattered, they arrogantly told us. And as a
result of this shoddy "journalism", seventeen percent of the
electorate--enough to make a difference--suffered an Election Day
stupidity attack and joined the thirty-five or so percent of the
electorate who are already so invincibly stupid that they would have voted
for Obama over Jesus Christ, given the choice.
And as a result, today there are two kinds of
Americans: Those who are going to get killed sometime in the next four
years, and those who will wish they had been.
In your column, you arrogantly declared that "good
government without newspapers is impossible." Well, if the results of the
just-completed election are an indication of the kind of government we
can expect from now on with the help of newspapers, I, for one, am very
anxious to find out what government without them might
look like.
I've seen one. The other can't possibly be
any worse.
And lest you think, Mr. Whitlock, that these are the
rantings of some angry white racist, let me tell you something right
now. My vote against B Hussein Obama had nothing whatsoever to do with
race. It had everything to do with ideology, policy and experience. I
would happily vote for a black person for President if it were a black
person whose ideology and policy positions accurately reflected my own and
who I could be confident would do his level best to act in my country's,
my family's and my personal best interests.
Obama meets none of these requirements. But there
are many examples of black people who do: Former Pennsylvania
gubernatorial candidate (and star Pittsburgh Steeler wide receiver) Lynn
Swann; Former Oklahoma Congressman (and star Oklahoma State running back)
JC Watts; former Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell; former
Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele; US Supreme Court Justice
Clarence Thomas; and the two great black authors and professors of
economics, Drs. Thomas Sowell and Walter E. Williams.
These fine individuals all represent examples of
black people I would whole-heartedly and enthusiastically support as
Presidential or Vice Presidential candidates.
So don't pull a "Lewis Diuguid" on me and brand me a
"racist", Mr. Whitlock, because such a charge is a scurrilous and
bald-faced lie. But then, having read your columns, I realize that you're
used to trafficking in those commodities.
I'll take the Washington Times and the
Wall Street Journal; because they're the only American newspapers
left that are still worth reading. The rest of them can all die, as far
as I'm concerned. It will indeed be a great day for Greater Kansas City
when she no longer has to put up with the poorly-written left-wing rag
that the Star has so arrogantly and unapologetically become.
When that happens, Mr. Whitlock, I hope you can at
least find employment where, instead of writing ridiculous and sophomoric
columns about children's games being played for mass entertainment, you
actually get to do something that's productive and more in line with your
actual talents; something you would actually be useful doing.
Jobs like emptying out office wastebaskets or
cleaning toilets come to mind rather quickly.
Merry Christmas, Mr. Whitlock.
Jim Meyer, Overland Park, KS
P.S.: Since the jihad you've been waging
against Chiefs General Manager Carl Peterson all these years finally
succeeded in getting him axed, whom do you recommend that the Chiefs hire
to replace him? Seriously, though, I don't see where you get off
criticizing Mr. Peterson, or any other sports executive or coach, for that
matter. After all, you yourself have never assembled a championship team
of any kind in your life.
Unless, of course, you're counting "Buck-Buck"!
