Kit-Kat Club: James Wolcott on the media's treatment of Kelley

[Jade Fox]

This is a blog, so you have to scroll down a bit to find this section.

http://jameswolcott.com/

But with Kelley, the questioning is super-specific, skeptical, and suspicious
from the outset, keys in on the same hotspots from interview to interview
(coke at Camp David, his refusal to take a flight physical, Laura's reputed
past as a distribution point on campus for wacky weed), and cuts her
answers short whenever she begins to dilate on the Bush modus operandi.

-snip-

They grill her on sources, their authenticity, whether she spoke to that
person directly or relied on hearsay. And in the interviews I've seen, Kelley
has been cucumber-cool and composed, going up to the brink of the
available evidence and no further, refusing to back down from her claims of
Dubya's drug use, and more than holding her own.

-snip-

What's clear is that the news media are uncomfortable with someone
investigating the arrogant and disturbing patterns of behavior in the Bush
dynasty. They can't ignore Kitty Kelley, but they want to keep her in her
litter box. But she's a tiny tigress, and will not be contained.

-snip-

As soon as I get my greedy mitts on Kitty Kelley's epic tone poem about a
certain upper-crust white-trash clan, I intend to provide ongoing
interpretation of its findings. Michiko Kakutani was so hopping mad about it
in The Times, stamping both her little moccasins at once, that I'm convinced
La Kitty is on to something. The Times never gets that indignant about a
simple piece of pop trash; it's only when the ruling class is given the tabloid
treatment that the paper becomes institutionally huffy. And it's rather rich
for a Times writer to squawk about an author using anonymous sources. The
Times couldn't function without self-serving leaks from highly placed
urinators. It might have been better had the Times assigned the review to
Janet Maslin, who has the taste of a middlebrow hausfrau; she could have
devoured the book in one sitting and put on seven pounds.

[Cha]

1. Meow!

"As soon as I get my greedy mitts on Kitty Kelley's epic tone poem about a
certain upper-crust white-trash clan, I intend to provide ongoing
interpretation of its findings. Michiko Kakutani was so hopping mad about it
in The Times, stamping both her little moccasins at once, that I'm convinced
La Kitty is on to something. The Times never gets that indignant about a
simple piece of pop trash; it's only when the ruling class is given the tabloid
treatment that the paper becomes institutionally huffy. And it's rather rich
for a Times writer to squawk about an author using anonymous sources. The
Times couldn't function without self-serving leaks from highly placed
urinators. It might have been better had the Times assigned the review to
Janet Maslin, who has the taste of a middlebrow hausfrau; she could have
devoured the book in one sitting and put on seven pounds."

I love it!

Seeing Kitty Kelley on c-span tonight at the Press Club was one the most ingriging events, lately!

[Jade Fox]

2. I just got Wolcott's new book from the library....

Its called: Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants: The Looting of the
News In a Time of Terror"

Promising title! He is great at eviscerating the media.

[hadrons]

3. I read Attack Poodles .... excellent read

[phantom power]

4. "They grill her on sources"

"They grill her on sources, their authenticity, whether she spoke to that
person directly or relied on hearsay."

If only they'd spent that kind of ferocious effort on verifying certain claims regarding WMDs, a couple years ago...

[Briar]

5. Ah, so they know how to do it.

"They grill her on sources, their authenticity, whether she spoke to that person directly or relied on hearsay."

They just chose not to do so when faced by dodgy dossiers and a bully boy's lies. What more need be said about these so-called "fair and balanced" journalists?