If the latest installment in the long-running net neutrality debate has rendered you mentally exhausted, allow me to approach the future-of-the-Internet argument from a less draining direction. You needn’t worry about mastering such tech and regulatory topics as Title II regulations, peering, and fast lanes.
Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James B. Comey waved his truncheon at the New York Times last week in a concise letter of protest addressed to the paper’s editor. The FBI, denounced in a Nov. 1 Times editorial for impersonating an Associated Press reporter in a 2007 Seattle-area case, had nothing to apologize for, insisted Comey. While the impersonation was “unusual,” he wrote, it was still proper, appropriate, and lawful.
Count the Washington press corps as unintended beneficiaries of last night’s slaughter of the Democrats by the Republicans. Now, with the Republicans taking of the Senate in addition to the House, leaving them in control of all congressional committees, we can expect up to twice as many Capitol Hill investigations into alleged fraud, abuse, waste, and perfidy by the Obama administration. Witnesses called! Testimony given! Evidence subpoenaed! Executive privilege claimed!
With the great burden of the 2014 campaign season largely behind us, and commercial haulers queuing to feed the countless tons of now-obsolete political coverage to the nation’s landfills, it’s a good time to visit Tom Wicker’s timeless confession about the nature of political journalism.
As if the genuine horrors of Ebola weren’t enough, a website called the National Report has taken to ginning up hoax “reports” about the disease. Over the past month, the site has published at least seven fake stories about Ebola, including one reporting that authorities quarantined the entire town of Purdon, Texas. It would be generous to describe the National Report’s treatment of current events as “satirical.” In addition to this bogus (and stupid) story, the site has published others about Texas kindergarteners getting Ebola from a Liberian foreign exchange student; the government’s plan to implant RFID chips in citizens during a pilot Ebola vaccination program; the president’s promise that Obamacare will cover the coming epidemic; and more.
One of the great payoffs of having lived a long life arrives on the day the newspapers publish your obituary. By out-lasting your competitors and foes, the storyline naturally bends your way. Time blurs precise recollection in favor of generous feelings, which we tend to bestow upon most famous survivors, no matter what sort of lives they lived.
For the purposes of this column, all you need to know about “GamerGate” is that it has earned writer Anita Sarkeesian, game entrepreneur Brianna Wu, and developer Zoe Quinn violent threats from anonymous Internet sources (here’s coverage in the New York Times, Reason, the Washington Post, Vox, Huffington Post, the Guardian, and Gawker, if you want to know more).
No bungling bureaucracy will last very long once insiders start anonymously dishing dirt to the press, a lesson currently being taught to Secret Service Director Julia Pierson. Anonymous sources from the Secret Service, its alumni, and insiders who have been read-in on current investigations are taking the agency apart brick-by-brick this month with their leaks to the Washington Post about the White House fence-jumper and the White House shooter.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. first signaled his exit from office so long ago that every reporter and pundit who covers the Department of Justice has stockpiled enough copy assessing his tenure to fill a mattress. Like Derek Jeter, Holder announced his farewell tour this past February, telling the New Yorker‘s Jeffrey Toobin that he would depart in 2014. The admission prompted journalists to update and fine tune their critiques of the attorney general with emerging details, the way obituary writers tweak their pre-written obituaries of famous, old people to keep them fresh and newsy.
This must be what perpetual war looks like.
In a Pentagon briefing yesterday, Army Lieutenant General Bill Mayville called the cruise missiles and bombs flung at targets in Syria “the beginning of a credible and sustainable persistent campaign.” How long will the campaign last? “I would think of it in terms of years,” Mayville responded.