Not Wisely, But Too Well

Beyond parody — Republicans have convinced themselves the purpose of the presidency is doing regular Fox hits and posting rage tweets all day. https://t.co/sAn9fsUo7f

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 12, 2021

I was going to say John Cornyn should just stay off of Twitter; but then this changed that advice from sardonic to serious:

The video of my evidence to the Committee this morning is here https://t.co/skAVC9QIoG https://t.co/xUcA0DwrH6

— Malcolm Turnbull (@TurnbullMalcolm) April 12, 2021

What was that about appearing on cable news? The article on Mr. Turnbull has a larger point:

"I've never seen a politician as deferential to a media proprietor as Trump was to Murdoch in any country,” says @TurnbullMalcolm, Australia's former prime minister. "If you don't think that's a threat to democracy you're kidding yourself." https://t.co/hDiukG2Gkh

— Edward Luce (@EdwardGLuce) April 12, 2021

I'm old enough to remember journalists defending FoxNews having access to the Obama White House Press room. It's really an Othello/Iago situation: the person you shoud be able to trust is the least trustworthy person in the room, and seeing that is almost impossible because you simply refuse to look at what's, in Orwell's phrase, in front of your nose. Murdoch did more than one interview suggesting to credulous interviewers he had no idea what was going on under Roger Ailes’ guidance of FoxNews.

The days of the skeptical journalist, a staple of Hollywood movies, are long gone.  Othello’s great flaw was being credulous, too.