Cindy Sheehan, mother of fallen soldier Casey Sheehan, announced on Memorial Day that she is leaving the anti-war movement she has unofficially headed for some time. Watch Norah O'Donnell, masquerading as a journalist on MSNBC while shilling for G. W. Bush, grill Sheehan to gain some insight as to why Sheehan decided to go home.
Gore Vidal would have called O'Donnell's technique "cryptofascism," I believe. Then again, there is nothing too cryptic about MSNBC's banner—referencing Sheehan's hunger strike—which reads, "Starving for Attention." Note the absence of even a question mark to provide a fig leaf for MSNBC's naked contempt for Cindy Sheehan and MSNBC's obvious support for the Iraq War and George W. Bush. In honor of that banner, I declined to place a question mark after the title for this post.
Since the rare few of my fellow Americans who still pay attention to news get it primarily from cable TV, how does one challenge NewsBots like Norah O'Donnell here? If she were suddenly stricken with journalistic integrity, another well-coiffed clone would simply take her place. (A study of this phenomenon, dubbed the "Katie Couric Effect," is underway at Johns Hopkins.)
If even so committed an individual as Cindy Sheehan withers before the NewsBot offensive, what is a poor Crayon like me to do?
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