Category: Just Plain Crazy

Katie Britt

~ susie

I assume by now you saw her strange SOTU response — or the version on Saturday Night Live. I thought Reed Galen hit it on the nose:

Britt represents a long, unhealthy tradition of staffers running for their boss’s old seat. They come not with beliefs but an ingrained sense of how to ‘play the game.’ She was an aide and then chief of staff for retired Alabama Senator Richard Shelby.

This is not new in American (or human) history, but that doesn’t make it better. It allows someone like Britt to achieve an incredible amount of power and prestige powered not by belief and conviction, but timing, fundraising, and connections. They now sit on the other side of the desk, and along with their staff and bevy of consultants, triangulate every issue, every vote, and every press release based on what’s best for their career. She represents not the people of Alabama, but her own ambition.

I’m just happy she got caught lying.

 

The stories you kind of know but can’t prove

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Yesterday I watched the Netflix series “American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders,” which picked up a few of the threads first reported by the late Gary Webb, who was crucified for his series about the CIA using the drug trade in the inner cities to fund Iran-Contra. It’s a slog, four one-hour installments that look at drugs, money laundering, and murders.

And it reminded me of the part I really hated about being a journalist — basically, when something smells bad, and you dig into it, and you find more than enough to convince you, but not enough to write about and meet the libel standards of American journalism. Because it’s painful to know things you can’t write about, especially when they say that you can’t trust your government.

Things like important people who were the behind-the-scenes owners of a toxic Superfund site who contracted with the North Jersey mob to dump chemical waste there. Ha ha, just kidding, I can’t tell you that because I can’t prove it! (Even though the FBI agent who told me about it seemed pretty convinced.)

Or a former president who was apparently taking bribes from the Russians in the form of shares in their biggest oil company. (No one in their right mind wanted to talk about that one!)

You know, that sort of thing.

There is a stunning segment in Part 3 when an investigative reporter says the source who worked for the NSA showed her a slow motion copy of the Zapruder film in which the driver of Kennedy’s limo in Dallas turned around and shot him. She said okay, so you doctored the film. He said, no, this one’s the original.

Once you go down the rabbit hole, it’s hard to believe anything. And the people who operate in that murky intelligence world (or politics) blow a lot of smoke up your ass, so you never really know what to believe.

And that’s why I’m glad I’m not a journalist anymore.