ASK THE HEEVAHAVA! The preferred subject of the newspaper political reporter
Thinks Sarah Palin has more experience than Obama, McCain and Biden combined! Then again, might be found face down at The Red Lion on election day, too.
John McCain and Sarah Palin were in bad ol' Pennsyltucky today. And the travelling press corps has been checking in with its stories based on personality. In reporting on personality, it really doesn't matter what the policies of McCain and Palin are or that the latter is a creationist and a bit of a serial liar when it comes to her political accomplishments. (The Daily Howler owns the book on the dissection of Palin's scripted claims and comparisons with the historical record here.)
When personality rules the narrative, journalists excel at asking the heevahava -- the person with the ridiculous, crazy or uninformed and out-of-it opinion. And, lo, in this way the heevahava is used to tell us the way things are.
Pennsylvania's loaded with heevahavas. Politely -- it's Pennsylvania Dutch slang for a dolt or stupid person. And you're going to see quote from many of them from now until election day because Pennsyltucky is -- like -- important. It could be a hinge of history.
Of course, sometimes someone intelligent and boring will be asked for their view. But it's the heevahava who always inevitably wins the day in political reporting. The Net has another word for the practice. It's called nut-picking.
Anyway, McCain and Palin were in Lancaster County at Franklin & Marshall College. News stories said they drew 10,000. The upshot was that Sarah Palin had caused an explosion in attendance.
Of course, on Friday, the Los Angeles Times had quietly reported that an Obama appearance in Lancaster had drawn ten thousand. Reactionary Sarah Palin -- someone who irrationally went from a relative nobody to the most famous person in the western world in less than a week -- drawing ten thousand in lily-white Lancaster County isn't that remarkable.
But if you know the county -- and DD's father worked in it for a long time -- large attendance for a political rally in which a black man is the star, is stunning.
But the reporters from the nation's press corps filed their McCain/Palin tales.
The heevahava was always present against the background of a script, one which played all day: All women were running to support Sarah Palin, a common sense-defying and intelligence-insulting lie, propagated as an exciting window on the raging political battle.
"I was really undecided, but I think she (Palin) has swayed me," said Susan Engle, a 42-year-old registered Democrat from Lancaster (to the a reporter from the Kansas City Star). "It's not so much her politics as it is her personality ... I'm not up on her politics, honestly, it was more the fact she has a family and a career."
Another woman somewhat gnomically told the newspaper: "Her shoe is our shoe." (See here.)
DD spent more than half his life in southeastern Pennsylvania. And that one, even by his relaxed standards, pegs the fruitcake meter.
The Allentown Morning Call, however, judged the crowd to be somewhat less than 10k -- quoting 7,500.
"The visit by McCain and Palin came less than a week after Obama addressed a crowd of 10,000 supporters at a park just blocks from the site of today's rally," reported the newspaper.
On board for a quip was the heevahava -- this time a sixty-three year-old man.
Playing the fool, someone we'll bet will be face down in a bar on election day, said: "[Sarah Palin] has 'more experience than all three of them combined,' referring to McCain, Obama and Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Biden ..."
A reporter from a newspaper called The Oxford Press wasn't at the rally but found an idiot in need of pulse-taking from Dayton, Ohio.
"I was going to vote for McCain, but I wasn't very enthusiastic," said "an independent" woman voter to the newspaper. "But when I found out that Palin was named, well, I literally felt the excitement go through me. I haven't been this excited about anyone since the John and Bobby Kennedy."
Since the John and Bobby Kennedy.
To invoke Bob Somerby of the Howler, it's hard to tell what's actually going on when your mainstream press displays such inanity, broadcasting words of clowns as earthy wisdom.
Is this what most people really think? Is it what they've really said?
Or is it equally likely -- perhaps more likely -- that when people of well-reasoned opinion now see a newspaper reporter coming, they go the other way because they know from reading the product that most reporters just don't like hearing from them that much.
Hard as it is for many to grasp, newspaper reporters looking for color prefer the words of heevahavas. It makes the reading more thrilling. DD knows. He was there, working for a newspaper where the heevahava was regarded as philosopher king. My friends, some who still work there, will back me up on it.
Jonathan Freedland, a Brit writing for the Guardian, was puzzled and dismayed: "Even if it's not ethnic prejudice, but some other aspect of the culture wars, that proves decisive ... For America to make a decision as grave as this one - while the planet boils and with the US fighting two wars - on the trivial basis that a hockey mom is likable and seems down to earth, would be to convey a lack of seriousness, a fleeing from reality ..."
The man just hasn't lived in Heevahava County long enough.
Southern California has no shortage of heevahavas. They're just higher class.
The Times had Rachel Abramowitz to act the clown late last week in a column which asked the question, "Which actress should play Sarah Palin in a movie about her life?"
The newspaper furnished a picture of Demi Moore because "as veteran comedy writer and MASH co-creator Larry Gelbart pointed out when we were discussing this, Moore could really capture what he sees as Palin's 'mixture of sensuality and dominatrix.' And just think, Moore's husband, Ashton Kutcher, could play the 'first dude,' Todd Palin."
While it was supposed to be a humor column, the celebrity journalist just couldn't resist playing the court jester a little too much. Because, well, writing about what Palin as a vice-president really means just doesn't have the same zing.
So hysterically funny, the pretty babblers will undo us all.
Thinks Sarah Palin has more experience than Obama, McCain and Biden combined! Then again, might be found face down at The Red Lion on election day, too.
John McCain and Sarah Palin were in bad ol' Pennsyltucky today. And the travelling press corps has been checking in with its stories based on personality. In reporting on personality, it really doesn't matter what the policies of McCain and Palin are or that the latter is a creationist and a bit of a serial liar when it comes to her political accomplishments. (The Daily Howler owns the book on the dissection of Palin's scripted claims and comparisons with the historical record here.)
When personality rules the narrative, journalists excel at asking the heevahava -- the person with the ridiculous, crazy or uninformed and out-of-it opinion. And, lo, in this way the heevahava is used to tell us the way things are.
Pennsylvania's loaded with heevahavas. Politely -- it's Pennsylvania Dutch slang for a dolt or stupid person. And you're going to see quote from many of them from now until election day because Pennsyltucky is -- like -- important. It could be a hinge of history.
Of course, sometimes someone intelligent and boring will be asked for their view. But it's the heevahava who always inevitably wins the day in political reporting. The Net has another word for the practice. It's called nut-picking.
Anyway, McCain and Palin were in Lancaster County at Franklin & Marshall College. News stories said they drew 10,000. The upshot was that Sarah Palin had caused an explosion in attendance.
Of course, on Friday, the Los Angeles Times had quietly reported that an Obama appearance in Lancaster had drawn ten thousand. Reactionary Sarah Palin -- someone who irrationally went from a relative nobody to the most famous person in the western world in less than a week -- drawing ten thousand in lily-white Lancaster County isn't that remarkable.
But if you know the county -- and DD's father worked in it for a long time -- large attendance for a political rally in which a black man is the star, is stunning.
But the reporters from the nation's press corps filed their McCain/Palin tales.
The heevahava was always present against the background of a script, one which played all day: All women were running to support Sarah Palin, a common sense-defying and intelligence-insulting lie, propagated as an exciting window on the raging political battle.
"I was really undecided, but I think she (Palin) has swayed me," said Susan Engle, a 42-year-old registered Democrat from Lancaster (to the a reporter from the Kansas City Star). "It's not so much her politics as it is her personality ... I'm not up on her politics, honestly, it was more the fact she has a family and a career."
Another woman somewhat gnomically told the newspaper: "Her shoe is our shoe." (See here.)
DD spent more than half his life in southeastern Pennsylvania. And that one, even by his relaxed standards, pegs the fruitcake meter.
The Allentown Morning Call, however, judged the crowd to be somewhat less than 10k -- quoting 7,500.
"The visit by McCain and Palin came less than a week after Obama addressed a crowd of 10,000 supporters at a park just blocks from the site of today's rally," reported the newspaper.
On board for a quip was the heevahava -- this time a sixty-three year-old man.
Playing the fool, someone we'll bet will be face down in a bar on election day, said: "[Sarah Palin] has 'more experience than all three of them combined,' referring to McCain, Obama and Democratic vice presidential candidate Joseph Biden ..."
A reporter from a newspaper called The Oxford Press wasn't at the rally but found an idiot in need of pulse-taking from Dayton, Ohio.
"I was going to vote for McCain, but I wasn't very enthusiastic," said "an independent" woman voter to the newspaper. "But when I found out that Palin was named, well, I literally felt the excitement go through me. I haven't been this excited about anyone since the John and Bobby Kennedy."
Since the John and Bobby Kennedy.
To invoke Bob Somerby of the Howler, it's hard to tell what's actually going on when your mainstream press displays such inanity, broadcasting words of clowns as earthy wisdom.
Is this what most people really think? Is it what they've really said?
Or is it equally likely -- perhaps more likely -- that when people of well-reasoned opinion now see a newspaper reporter coming, they go the other way because they know from reading the product that most reporters just don't like hearing from them that much.
Hard as it is for many to grasp, newspaper reporters looking for color prefer the words of heevahavas. It makes the reading more thrilling. DD knows. He was there, working for a newspaper where the heevahava was regarded as philosopher king. My friends, some who still work there, will back me up on it.
Jonathan Freedland, a Brit writing for the Guardian, was puzzled and dismayed: "Even if it's not ethnic prejudice, but some other aspect of the culture wars, that proves decisive ... For America to make a decision as grave as this one - while the planet boils and with the US fighting two wars - on the trivial basis that a hockey mom is likable and seems down to earth, would be to convey a lack of seriousness, a fleeing from reality ..."
The man just hasn't lived in Heevahava County long enough.
Southern California has no shortage of heevahavas. They're just higher class.
The Times had Rachel Abramowitz to act the clown late last week in a column which asked the question, "Which actress should play Sarah Palin in a movie about her life?"
The newspaper furnished a picture of Demi Moore because "as veteran comedy writer and MASH co-creator Larry Gelbart pointed out when we were discussing this, Moore could really capture what he sees as Palin's 'mixture of sensuality and dominatrix.' And just think, Moore's husband, Ashton Kutcher, could play the 'first dude,' Todd Palin."
While it was supposed to be a humor column, the celebrity journalist just couldn't resist playing the court jester a little too much. Because, well, writing about what Palin as a vice-president really means just doesn't have the same zing.
So hysterically funny, the pretty babblers will undo us all.
posted by George Smith at 6:57 PM
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