Field Marshals and Attorneys
I can never quite make up my mind as to who exactly occupies the position of maximum tedium in the punditariat.
Usually the prize goes to that vacuous harpy and reputed mean drunk Laura Ingraham.
But every so often some "mainstream" character blunders onto Imus in the Morning and makes a very public display of heretofore unknown powers of ennui.
Which brings us to Jeff Greenfield, Time Magazine columnist and correspondent for CNN. His qualifications for the job of superjournalist are unremarkable, he is a lawyer of course and a former flack for hapless New York Mayor John V. Lindsay. Thankfully Jeff's has a DC class appetite for R.N.C. "talking points" and all the usual credulous anti-Clinton bona fides. But so does everyone else in DC, what makes Jeff so special?
Well, unlike most of his competitors who are largely press agents to the mighty or lowbrow intellectual bullies, Jeff is a man with a heroic sense of destiny. He wants to be cable teevee's big think Walter Lippman style superpundit-and it's this poor naive belief in the sheer gravity of his wafer-thin analysis that makes Jeff Greenfield such a prize bore.
He also has the ability to be almost hilariously judicious and sober when he's evaluating the latest rightical chic policy proposals this gives him that extra Lippman-esque pretentiousness.
Watch for it...
Take today's sermon, it turns out Jeff's powter-pigeon self is worried that relentless 24-7 cable news coverage of the war is exerting some influence over coalition tactics and strategy in Iraq. Bombing strategies against Baghdad are judged on "how it will look on TV" or so Jeff claims. World War 2 he opines would've come out differently if CNN had existed then to broadcast video footage of allied mistakes and setbacks. Jeff can't seem to figure out what "role" the news media should play in war-time, this doesn't surprise me, he's an attorney by trade and role-playing is a big part of the attorney mindset.
Therefore, we can conclude and not unjustly either that the reason Jeff Greenfield is in the rear with the gear is out of a puritanical devotion to principal...his presence on the battlefield might alter the war's outcome given the sheer power of the media.
That my friends is the mark of a true self worshipping monolith, the placid belief that your own trade occupies the very center position in all of reality.
Imus of course let this pass challenged preferring to pepper Greenfield with tactical and strategic questions that the CNN correspondent is completely unqualified to answer in any way.
At one point Jeff paid tribute to the ability of the Iraqi Republican Guards in this demented fashion; "These are serious troops, we're not talking Marshal Petain sending the troops to the front in taxi-cabs in world war one!"
Sigh...if Jeff Greenfield feels compelled to make his francophobic bones the least he can do is get his god damned story right.
Marshal Petain had nothing to do with the famous Parisian "taxicab army" from World War One. No it was General Galleini who as Commander in Chief of the Paris Military district sent the Paris garrison's troops to the Battle of the Marne
via taxicab and thus saved France. This is NOT an example of French Military haplessness, but rather a stunning display of celerity on the battlefield.
Well what do you want?
He's an attorney by trade getting the facts right is secondary to audience effect....but it's curious to me that in a age of rampant francophobia Jeff couldn't even summon up the right humiliating example.
Which is when Jeff gathered up his remaining strength and outlined several important pointed questions the administration must "answer" about their strategy of international pre-emption. Notice the rhetorical adroitness here, the Admin must somehow "Answer" questions that Jeff doesn't have the guts to ask as it might imperil the goodwill of the famously vindictive Bush apparatus. You'd almost think he was serious the way he droned on and on about China preempting Taiwan or India preempting Pakistan....nope he'll find out about it all via CNN updates like the rest of us no sense in making real enemies now is there Jeff?
Like his President there is a certain amount of raw passive aggression that colors Jeff's approach to big time national politics.
What a difference just four years makes though, back in 1999 snitch politics were all the rage and no question in regards to President Clinton no matter how humiliating was out of bounds if it meant power and advancement among the media elite.
Now...Jeff Greenfield addresses questions that ougt to be asked of HIS President to...Don Imus.
Changing the tone in Washington indeed.
Sick
Demented
Typical...

PS
And by the way at some future date I've got to address on this blog the critical problem of over population-LAWYER over population I mean. No joke true believers, the sheer glut of lawyers we have out there is forcing surplus attorney's into journalism and other entertainment trades...congress must act!
Ah but that is another column.
:)