House of Eratosthenes

The War Room Hack Thirty is a list of our least favorite political commentators, newspaper columnists and constant cable news presences, ranked roughly (but only roughly) in order of awfulness and then described rudely. Criteria for inclusion included writing the same column every week for 30 years, warmongering, joyless repetition of conventional wisdom, and making bad puns.

I do enjoy watching people get picked on for repeating opinions, particularly passionless, tired opinions, and trying to claim credit for them.

Richard Cohen was placed in the Number One spot. Good choice.

The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen has been a columnist since 1976. He’s good friends with Ben Bradlee and Sally Quinn. He works one day a week. At a certain point, in that exceptionally privileged and cushy position, his brain disintegrated. He’s not so much an old liberal who grew conservative as he is a simplistic old hack who believes his common prejudices to be politically incorrect truths and his Beltway conventional wisdom to be bracing political insight.

As a warmonger, I must take issue with the criteria though. Any time a war starts, it’s an entirely valid opinion to have, that there might have been a way to avert the war — although you might not agree with this yourself. Most of the time, the same goes for the opinion that the war was unavoidable. A lot of the time that position will be deserving of a certain respect, even from people who disagree. Although I can’t say “always,” some wars are just stupid. And I suppose there are always going to be people living during every war who insist this war is one of the stupid ones.

But “hack,” to me, just means one thing: You get paid to write something; you finish up this sample of your lifetime chosen craft, this representation of your workmanship, and you hand it in without saying to yourself “okay, does this justify someone throwing down some hard coin to pick up a copy of the product in which my work appears?” You don’t ask yourself that question, you make a habit of not asking yourself that question — and it shows. That’s a hack.

And you’re hackier when you’re oblivious to this. You say something tiresome and tedious like, um, let’s say…”Dick Cheney reminds me of Darth Vader.” And then by your words and actions communicate the expectation that you are to be congratulated for this searing insight and fresh humor. Gah. Makes me barf a little in my mouth just thinking about it.

For twenty years I have made it a hard rule that wherever I am living, I should buy the primarily-representative local newspaper at least once a week. But over the last five or ten, I’ve let that slide. And it’s not because of the Internet. It’s a quality issue. Newspapers…in fact, pretty much all printed media…have deteriorated into pamphlets that say the same thing over and over again: Such-and-such a social need has been increasing, women & minorities hardest hit, and there’s no money in the kitty. It’s not like I want to hang on to the two dollars, it’s more like I just can’t seem to find the time. It’s a one-note dirge that never seems to change in tone or rhythm.

The list must be print-media only. Can’t see any other reason why Bill Maher would not be on there.

I’ll just say it here: Happy Thanksgiving, Morgan!
- Andy | 11/25/2010 @ 09:14
To you as well, my friend.

Hey give me a few minutes on the holiday posting. Right now all I have is the early-morning musings from oh dark thirty, right after I slid the TurBaconDuckEn in the oven and plugged into the news. I’ll get un-cynical sometime later.
- mkfreeberg | 11/25/2010 @ 09:23
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, Morgan.

And now… back to cynicism, already in progress.

…have deteriorated into pamphlets that say the same thing over and over again…

Morgan. Dude. It’s ALWAYS been this way… nothing’s changed. Mebbe you just woke up or sumthin’.
- bpenni | 11/25/2010 @ 12:04
It’s like eating salty food, you know? I mean, you’re eating it and it doesn’t really occur to you that it’s saltier than it should be. Then you get an extra dose, and you’re all, “I can’t even go back to what I was eating before!”

The fiscal deterioration of the region is seemingly innocuous as far as newspaper subjects go, innit? Kinda seems like that’s what they should be talking about. But…you should see the Sacramento Bee. Gyah. That there is your “extra salty.” Some days, they degenerate into a parody of themselves. Don’t know if I’m reading a hard copy of The Onion or something.

Happy Thanksgiving to you too! And I’m sorry about your frozen water pipes.
- mkfreeberg | 11/25/2010 @ 12:40
Ah, we’re all better in the pipes department… it was just a transient inconvenience. I think it’s the cosmos’ way of reminding me that I’m fallible.
- bpenni | 11/25/2010 @ 15:55

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Recent

Items of Interest

Monthly Archives

What They Say

Links

Hack ThirtyThursday, November 25th, 2010

Hack Thirty
Thursday, November 25th, 2010