A Moment of Epiphany

Rush was blathering on in the background and something he said caught my ear. He made the point that President Bush likely doesn't pay any attention at all to what's being said in the national newspapers and the evening news broadcasts. This is why he seems frequently tone-deaf in press events. It's because he doesn't care about the national press.

Remember last year's kerfuffle when the President's spokeman admitted -- nay, almost bragged -- that Bush didn't read the newspapers? The media took it to mean he didn't know what was going on, since he couldn't possibly have any other sources of information. They seem to have studiously ignored the fact that he has the vast and voracious power of the Federal government to find out what he needs to know. He's better informed than they are, that's for sure.

I think it's true that he just doesn't pay any heed to the mainstream media any more, none at all. He's realised, as many have, that he can go elsewhere and get better information, at least nationally and internationally. Newspapers and television news will own local news reporting for a few more years.

Yes, you still have to start with the news-gathering power they have, but once you've been to the Internet and learned where and how to find out more, whom you can trust for even-handedness and being truthful (which isn't the same as being non-partisan, necessarily), and how to reason for yourself, then you rely on the mainstream media less and less.

I can't tell you the last time I watched an evening news broadcast. I don't want to (because there are all sorts of agendas at work) and now I don't have to, except when a situation relies on video. I'm still not on cable, so I have to let the television provide video for me. But once I move to cable, good bye ABCBPBSMSNBCNN. The cord will be fully cut. The networks' evening newscasts will no longer be the "go to" place they're accustomed to being, but one choice in a range of better possibilities for news.

I think that's what happened: George Bush is the first post-MSM President. He has already moved on, but still has to deal with the twitching corpse since it's so large that it doesn't know it's dead yet, and so many Americans aren't fully online yet. It's why he's so unconcerned with polling -- in stark contrast to the Clinton administration's obsession with them. It's the mainstream media that obsess over these things, that study every uptick or downtick like tea leaves or chicken bones, and so their viewers get bathed in it. Bush doesn't behave like a president with "historic low approval rating" and a "presidency under siege" because he's not aware of it, except tangentially. It's not on his radar because he's using a different radar system!

A fascinating epiphany that I'll have to mull over.