“You’re a woman, a reporter,” Crocodile Dundee told his female lead in the classic 1986 film of the same name. “That makes you the biggest busybody in the world.”
His remark was no insult, however, because in 1986 an investigative journalist’s “nose for news” was still a badge of accomplishment and source of professional pride. In the words of another movie from the same era, however, “That was then … this is now.”
Last week members of the National Press Club sat stone-faced as the only news organization still worthy of the name rolled out proof of the political coup of the century before their very eyes. They asked a few questions, but the next day stories on what they had learned were nowhere to be found. As usual, WND and the bloggers carried it while the mainstream media ignored it, even Fox. What’s now clear, if it wasn’t before, is that the MSM all know something that we don’t know – but whatever it is, they’re not telling.
What could be the reason for this amazing display of journalistic apathy? Just for starters, here are some ideas that have been bouncing around in my square little cranium, but if you’ve got any better ones send them right in because I obviously need all the help I can get.
- They are dead. Don’t laugh. This gang hasn’t asked a valid eligibility question in three years, so the possibility isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. Somebody embalmed them and put rechargeable batteries in their backs just under those stuffed shirts, so now they are able to perform most human functions, with the notable exception of critical thinking.
- They have been kidnapped by aliens and replaced with pod people. This is a little better than dead, however, because their captors may still run out of chloroform long enough for them to regain consciousness, return to their news desks and discover that their republic has been taken over by a cabal. Whether or not their capacity to wonder would have survived the chloroform, however, is still up for debate.
- They have been, individually and to a man, bought off by Middle Eastern oil money to the tune of several trillion dollars, so they no longer give a hoot about what happens to the former Land of Liberty or those of us who still live here.
- They have been hooked on heroin by a dark and menacing stranger of mysterious origin on whom they depend for their next hit. The menacing stranger doesn’t think the second Obama fake birth certificate should be examined too closely now that it’s been exposed as an obvious crock, and the ink isn’t dry on the third one yet. Alternatively, Stockholm syndrome and mass hypnosis are also possibilities.
- They are afraid of losing their cushy jobs writing exactly what they are told by the multinational corporations they work for, while pretending to be big, tough, independent guardians of the truth; and they can’t quit and get a real reporting job because they don’t remember how to do one.
- They do remember how to do one but realize there aren’t any more left.
- Somebody found out (or invented) the “real” reason they were discharged from the army, why their parents separated, what sites they’ve been visiting at 3 in the morning or what their daughters really did on spring break in 2006.
- The old convention pictures or email messages they thought they deleted mysteriously turned up again but aren’t online … quite yet; or a hotel maid they may never even have met is being schooled somewhere on how to file rape charges.
- Their lives or their families’ lives have been threatened.
- They are ashamed, so ashamed. Of being so willfully stupid for so long. Of latching on to a 2008 PC fantasy that smelled bad even then, and not having the courage to spit it out even when it began to moulder in their mouths. Of being left in the dust by housewife-journalists and hobby bloggers who filled the void by doing their jobs for them – and doing them better and with more integrity. Of being AWOL so long from the ethics they learned in freshman journalism class that they don’t even know how to come home anymore.
The real reason the MSM won’t investigate, whatever that may be, is an open secret shared with thousands in Congress, the judiciary, the military and even some tea-party candidate wannabes, but closed to the rest of us. Maybe it’s something as innocuous as just not wanting to look foolish if they happen to be wrong, which they will look because they are, and maybe it’s something a lot more sinister – we simply don’t know. But their lockstep recalcitrance is no way to observe our nation’s 235th – and perhaps last truly independent – Independence Day.
Marylou Barry is a Christian Zionist with a special interest in the Middle East. She is also the author of a series of children’s books. Visit her blog at Marylou’s America and her book website at House with the Light Books.
