08.28.11
The Sunday Lickspittle
Today, Nicholas Kristof turns his end of summer vacation in his old hometown into a column bemoaning unemployment — in less than one thousand words.
I detest Kristof. He’s a poster boy for my Culture of Lickspittle tab, someone appearing so hand-wringing and sincere in print butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
And he’s here in the “Good Boy” tune at 21 seconds, gesturing at some edition of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. That’s where all the beautiful and brilliant people get invited to brainstorm on the world’s problems.
And they’ve done so well.
Twenty one seconds in, basking in the applause from the swells at Davos.
Anyway, here’s Kristof today, as usual, squandering the high-button real estate at the New York Times with the obvious.
Really, anyone could write this. A computer program, probably one of about twenty lines, might suffice. It’s that phoned in.
Kristof gently bemoans the media’s focus on the deficit, not the number one problem, joblessness, and that he’s been guilty, too. Specifically, he squandered a golden opportunity on Twitter.
On Twitter!
I’m an offender, too: I asked President Obama a question at the Twitter town hall, and it was a gotcha query about his negotiations with Republicans. I’m sorry that I missed the chance to push him on the issue that Americans care most about …
Sorry I was a twit, sez Kristof. How many retweets did it earn him?
Kristof walks or drives around his town in Oregon, interviews a couple unemployed in the street, work that could’ve taken all of one morning.
Finally, Kristof bravely asks: “Mr. Obama, with 25 million Americans hurting, will you fight — really fight! — to put jobs at the top of the national agenda?”
Like a lawyer, he never asks questions he doesn’t already have the answer to. And this one is obviously “No.”
So fiery!
“I invite you to comment on this column on my blog, On the Ground. Please also join me on Facebook and Google+, watch my YouTube videos and follow me on Twitter,” reads the usual italicized print.
1,147,543 followers.
A tweeted wisdom of Kristof, name-dropping another swell person:
Jaron Lanier just said to me: “Tweeting is like sex. Writing a book is like raising a child.”
On cyberterrorism and cyberwar, since he was just at a conference on them:
Cyber attacks could damage the grid, banking system, air traffic, dams, etc., and already are stealing many corp secrets.
My takeaway from a conference on cyber-terrorism: the “next 9/11” could be a cyber attack that shuts the electrical grid.
Man, the guy’s really on it.