Icy Sexpot Dana Perino Makes a Funny!
So you're elevated to your current position because your predecessor got cancer , and every single official you represent is a thieving scumbag with 2% approval ratings, and the country is so crippled that Honduras could probably launch a successful invasion. What do you do, Dana Perino? You make Alex Trebek jokes, obviously:
MS. PERINO: Les.
QYes, thank you, Dana. Two questions on American business. In the -
MS. PERINO: American business for 200. (Laughter.) I've always wanted to be on that show. Go ahead, Les, I'm sorry.
But what was the question? Something about how America has been intentionally deindustrialized and wages have stagnated or dropped for all but the top 10% of earners and blue-collar union jobs have been eliminated leaving a vast working class with no hope for anything beyond lifelong credit-card debt and children who finish school unable to read?
Ha ha, of course not. Let's run down the category JOURNALISTS ARE SELF-OBSESSED TWATS, after the jump.
Warning: This will probably make you want to throw up on your keyboard:
QThat's all right. In the just released 2007 annual report of The Washington Post Company, Chairman Donald Graham writes, "The Washington Post circulation continued to fall, and a sharp drop in classified advertising raised questions about the future of our business." Question, since The Washington Post is a leading part of one of this nation's most important businesses, do you and the President share Don Graham's expressed questioning about its future?
MS. PERINO: No. I think that the free press is alive and well.
QBy striking contrast, The New York Post is constantly gaining circulation. And my question, do you and the President believe that The Washington Post might also gain, rather than lose, if its editorial and reportorial writing were more like The New York Post rather than like The New York Times, which is also seriously losing circulation?
MS. PERINO: Maybe they ought to look at the tabloid format, I don't know.
QBut how about the content, not just --
MS. PERINO: I'm not going to comment on that.
Thank you, Dana, for not further dignifying that.
True, the question was asked by Les Kinsolving -- a sort of surrealist version of Jeff Gannon (in the softball conservative question sense, not the gay hooker having sex with senior administration officials sense). But we are simultaneously losing two wars on the other side of the planet and this nation is so utterly crippled that Costa Rica could successfully invade. Shouldn't the rest of the White House Press Corps be obligated to "silence" anyone who makes Washington journalists look even worse than they already are?
Because Dana won't answer the stupid leading question about the New York Post, we will. This is why it succeeds while the other Post fades:
* The Post is entertaining; the Washington Post isn't.
* The Post is easy to read on the subway; the Washington Post isn't.
* The Post has a great sports section and a great gossip section; the Washington Post doesn't
* The Post is fairly well written and easy to read; the Washington Post is both abstruse and boring.
* The Post is populist, the Washington Post is middlebrow, which is increasingly what passes for highbrow in this country, which means the audience is shrinking by the hour.
* The Post is mostly read by people who don't read news on the Internet; the Washington Post is marketed to people who only read news on the Internet.
The end.
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Press Briefing by Dana Perino [White House]