The latest news wrap-up: Dirt sheet writers do dirty deeds, and maybe Judas wasn’t so bad after all.
By Brian Beutler
Monday April 10, 2006
They Said He Was a Dominant and Forceful Man Whose Forward Policies Have Serious Growth Potential
Even though certain American politicians are especially seedy and corrupt, we can at least be thankful that we never have to hear any of them—especially Randy “Duke” Cunningham —talk about their alternative sexual practices. No such luck for the poor, poor Italians, though. Silvio Berlusconi has confessed to “calling sex chat lines.” Why, you might ask? “[T]o ask women what they thought of his policies.” Although he’s behind in the polls for his current re-election campaign, he claims that—within the phone-sex political establishment—he’s extraordinarily popular (though one of his opponent’s minions did point out: "These women say anything to please the desperate men who call them.") He also claims that he subscribes to the Italian version of Playboy— Playragazzo. You know. For the articles. The political ones. According to Berlusconi, they’re all molto bene, and all in favor of Berlusconi’s continued, autocratic leadership.
Italy: A+
Berlusconi: F
Playboy: A (the articles… no really.)
This is Exactly the Kind of Factual Inaccuracy That Will Turn People Away From Religion
It’s been a great week for overturning master narratives. First, the entire White House story on what they knew when about Iraq vis-à-vis Niger and WMD finally and completely bit its last granule of dust. Then—surprise—we learned that, after all these years, the Gnostics were right! (Unless you’re an atheist in which case it’s all pretty weird and irrelevant, but whatever.) The gospel of Judas was uncovered in the Egyptian desert, and it relayed an account of Jesus’ last days wherein our lord and savior asked Judas to facilitate revolution his demise, so the proletariat he could rise to his preordained and inevitable kingship. It’s kinda like Christian Marxism. And it cuts hard against the prevailing dogma. The discovery is proving to be an even bigger pain in the ass to corrupt, self-professed Christian politicians like Tom DeLay, who will now have to figure out a new way of characterizing the Jack Abramoffs of the world.
Judas: A (or so it now seems)
Master narratives: F
Spending over 1000 years stuck in the Egyptian desert: F
And Yet Still Less Intrusive Than Verizon’s "Hear Me Now" Guy
Fun news from Wired. They bring us the statement of a former AT&T communications technician named Mark Klein who witnessed some of his former company’s involvement with the NSA’s neat little domestic spying project. According to him, AT&T has been using a program with immense data sifting capacity in most major cities on the west coast. Based upon the nature of the software and the extent of its deployment, Klein has concluded that the NSA program is not in any way “limited to foreign communications or…otherwise consistent with the NSA’s charter or with FISA.” He goes on to say that, “unlike the controversy over targeted wiretaps of individuals’ phone calls, this potential spying appears to be applied wholesale to all sorts of internet communications of countless citizens.” This should keep the American intelligence bureaucracy tied up watching weeding out San Fernando Valley-based pornography downloads for the next several months. And perhaps they’ll find out that our president’s telephone “ettiquite” rivals Silvio Berlusconi’s. But they’ll probably keep that classified for “reasons of national security.”
Wired: A
Domestic spying: F
Sex-obsessed bureaucrats and politicians: D
Readers of New York Post Reflect on Shattering of Credibility Paper Previously Had in Parallel Universe
The New York Post has suspended one of their freelance gossip columnists after he was caught taking large sums of money from a wealthy investor named Ron Burkle in exchange for keeping his face off of their famous page six. This is, it would seem, a major journalistic “no no” in the gossip column corner of journalism, but probably a wise set-up if you’re a billionaire businessman who benefits from keeping your name out the mud. Conservatives have realized the same thing. That’s why they’ve bribed op-ed columnists, set up friendly media empires, and created a network of disingenuous intellectuals coddled in think-tank sinecures so that they can manage the information skew vis-à-vis their abominable leadership. I suspect that if Jared Paul Stern – the Post columnist – hasn’t already been flagged to write a book, that he’s been flagged to anchor his own show on Fox doing essentially what all Fox journalists do: if it stinks, ignore it for profit.
Page Six: A+
Jared Paul Stern: D-
Journalism by bribery: F
Got an item you’ve graded and want to submit it for the next wrap-up? Send your submissions to cpwebmaster@campusprogress.org.
Brian Beutler graduated from UC Berkeley in 2004 and has interned at The Washington Monthly and the Brookings Institution. He writes for the Washington City Paper.
--------
Comments
I may be a little bias but calling a sex chat line should not wreck ones career, I agree if your using tax payer funds then there is a problem there. Sex in a natural thing and the last thing any of us should ever want is someone finger on the button that aint gettin none.
— Jessica - Jul 30, 11:01 PM - #I am sure Mr Berlusconi also visits cam chat girls, so he can hear and watch them in the same time about their opinions regarding his politic within the Italian government.
— Jasmin - Mar 13, 08:08 PM - #