Bait and switch and other disservices

As a preface, please observe that I’m in a pleasant and genial mood, very much the ornament of my species, because Arsenal massively upset Chelsea 2-1 this weekend.  Fuck yeah.

Are we done talking about the fucking private jets yet?  It seemed like almost every domestic media outlet was all over them last week.  “So here come these execs from some of the biggest employers in America at a time of unprecedented economic crisis, to talk about a historic industry bailout that will cost the taxpayers hojillions of dollars, and we’re going to spend most of the time talking about the fact that they showed up to the hearing in private jets.  In other news, I still can’t figure out why donuts make you fat, how to drive stick, or why people don’t trust the news media.”

Seriously, what the fuck?  I can hear you asking.  Well, I’ll tell you what’s the fuck: It’s sheer laziness.  When confronted by big complex issues that it doesn’t understand — and with the caliber of journalism education in this country, that category is going to get bigger and bigger — American journalists react as you might expect: By flailing their limbs wildly and doing high-kicking dance moves to 1980s-era drum beats.  (Think All the President’s Flashdances, or something.)

No no, what they actually do is say “uh….” until they find an aspect — any aspect — of the story that they do understand and then sticking to it like mussels on a cliff.  In this case, since nobody in the media has more than an inch-deep understanding of industry bailouts, they seized the completely unrelated fact that the auto execs showed up in private jets, callously demonstrating their lack of understanding of the common people (or some fucking thing.)

A few things: First of all, national news types have about as much understanding of “the common people” as I do of how to talk to girls without them making a James Carville face at me.  Second, and much more important — see how easy it is to focus on tangential detail? — WHO FUCKING CARES ABOUT THE PRIVATE JETS?!  They’re corporate honchos!  Of course they’re going to have big honching jets to honch around the country in.  (Honch.)

The media, in this as in so many other cases, was aided and abetted by Congress, whose members greedily snatched at the chance to look populist on national TV by smacking the car CEOs up and down the Beltway.  So it really was two national institutions that failed the nation, not just one.  Congress and the media really needed to address the effects of a huge taxpayer bailout (or lack thereof) of the auto industry.  Would this actually save jobs?  Why don’t you private-jetting clowns have an actual plan to restructure your battered, obsolete companies?

I’m well aware, of course, that it wasn’t literally ALL focused on the private jets.  There were a few members of the chattering and governing classes that were talking about the substance of the issue.  (I’m not thrilled with all of it, either: Pat Buchanan may be crazy in more ways than this, but I resent his attempts to spread the crazy to me by insisting that the unions are to blame for the auto industry’s woes.  Paying workers a solid wage is wasteful, but paying executives more money than god is just good business sense.  Right.)

I hate the bailout, though I know it has to happen.  The human consequences of simply letting U.S. automakers burn like a Pinto are simply too dire.  Pile them on top of an already tottering job market and economy, and you could be forgiven for thinking that we’d be about one minute from midnight.