"It's not every day that you see a nation's leader not only fall on his sword, but, then, take the time to pick up a pike, mount it securely to the wall, back up, and then charge into the tip of that sharpened spear as well, and at full speed" said a well-known and respected host during an equally recognizable organization's news discussion program.
And this was only the beginning of the program. Even more ladles of steaming, chunky, even luxurious, honesty were being promised, in the run-down of guests and topics for discussion. The tape was never aired, of course, for a host of obvious reasons, and some oblique ones, too.
However, I got hold of this program after it was copied and sent around to me, and some others, by virtue of long-time friendships among the technical staff of a certain news group. You'd know the organization in an instant if you looked at the tape and saw the set, but I no longer have the tape, not that anyone believes me.
I burned it, because of what else I saw, and what I knew it meant.
However, to relieve your imagination, it was the not a tape from the Fox Game-Show-Hosts-and-Bald-Lies network, nor was it their opposite number -- oh, wait. There IS no opposite number to the right-wing's Extreme Lunacy Division, broadcast-wise.
That is only an opinion, of course, despite all the wailing and moaning we hear from the right about the all-powerful left-wing news establishment. News Alert to Right Wing Half-Wits: The Left Wing News Media died at the end of the Vietnam War. It's been All Right Wing, All the Time, ever since then.
I mean: How do you think we got here, where we are today, you bozos?
*
By way of analogy: Geographically speaking, if the center of the United States is about two miles northwest of Lebanon, Kansas -- and it is -- then the political center of gravity has been dragged far, far right.
Yes, you felt it coming, and here it is: We're no longer in Kansas, Toto.
Fox News, in this analogy, is about dead center in Germany -- perhaps far enough inland to qualify for the U.S. Bureau of Historical Hysteria's Approximate Proximity Protection Status, with Fox Central touching down in the Munich area, where the Beer Hall Putsch was located.
CNN, America's official Airport Channel? Put them somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic, adrift, seasick, confused. The networks -- put them about a thousand miles off the Eastern Seaboard.
MSNBC and PBS can be parked just off the continental shelf.
(True, in their heydays, MSNBC and PBS made it across the continental divide, and even starting making their way toward the Pacific, but they're no Lewis and Clark -- in the last 30 years, they have since been pushed further and further back by their management and their sponsors -- and by such grinding, overwhelming political and financial force -- that they've been tossed back out to sea, in the Atlantic, bobbing around in the waves, just out of reach of terra firma.)
No, the most politically left-leaning news organization of more than five people, in the whole country, of whatever media type, is now held up in the equivalent of Dodge City, Kansas, is barricaded in a saloon, is under fire, and is quickly running short of ammo, food, and water -- but their spirits remain high.
The most politically right-leaning news organization of more than five people, in the whole country, of whatever media type, is now held up in the equivalent of Paris, and is battling hard, further and further east, to join the main task force of Lucid-But-Fissionably-Crazy in Munich.
Great Britain, in this analogy, at least, has been spared -- although Glenn, Rush, Bill, Sean, and a hundred empty-suit wannabes like them, paddled around in the surf a while, like corks bounding around in a sloshing barrel of pickle brine, about a hundred miles off the coast of England, for some years, until the Ministry of Sanity and Safe Shorelines shooed them onto the beaches at Calais. (There, at least, in Calais, these mental giants of media agreed, among themselves, they could at least celebrate the WW2 invasion landings on Presidents' Day, in peace.)
Attempts to correct their multiple misunderstandings have failed, as per all usual and normal deployments of facts and information. Telegrams sent to them, for example, proving that those invasion landings actually happened in Normandy, and on another date, keep getting returned, and are marked with childish scrawls, in crayon, like FOOLISH LEFTIST PROPAGANDA! and SOCIALIST COMMIE LIARS!
So much for the long-ago burial at sea of Fair And Balanced.
*
The news reader continued, "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been supping, bathing, and apparently gulping from the breakout Trump Sewage Fountain, when the Prime Minister announced he would put a fence around the entire country, because, in Netanyahu's own words, quoting now, 'In our neighborhood, we need to protect ourselves from wild beasts.'"
A comment was added after a slight pause: "If you were a Palestinian or Arab, you may be able to imagine this going down as well as a flaming-kerosene-and-broken-glass Margarita, with a Flint-water chaser."
There was a change of camera angles, "When we return, we will examine this new provocation in the Middle East, as well as the spread, in this country, and abroad, of what can only be described as fascism."
There was a slight pause, the smallest hint of the trademark smile of patient wit, and the game being afoot, as it is said, as the commercial break was announced.
*
After the break, the tape went on for a few more minutes, but to no real point.
The moderator had been removed from the program. Another person was present -- someone flustered, and having trouble attaching the microphone to her jacket. On-screen, a previous group of four panel members were being cleared from the set, and two other people were being seated, and in a cluster of easily-observed confusion.
That was the last time I saw that kind, intelligent, and able journalist. I haven't heard from my old buddies in the tech staff for a while, either.
For the sake of my missing mentor, colleagues, and the disappearance of the country in which I thought I lived -- I'm sure there's a rational explanation for all of this.
I look forward to hearing it.
*
Legal Notice:
All characters and events portrayed in this article are fictional, unless and until negatives can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and to the complete satisfaction of the Tribunal. Any resemblance to actual persons or countries or ideas, living or dead, is purely coincidental, is treasonous to the state and its leaders, and is unfortunate for the health of the ideas, individuals, groups, and/or countries allowed in this portrayal.
