THE RISE OF LEADERSHIP DOWN: Sawyer popped the question to Maples!

THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2019

It was all downhill from there:
Oof! We refer you to page A3 in this morning's New York Times.

As anthropologists will understand, the downward spiral which led us to Mister Trump's War confronts us on that page. Sadly, no link is available.

That said, we haven't changed a single word. Here's what the text really says:
The Conversation
FIVE OF THE MOST READ, SHARED AND DISCUSSED POSTS FROM ACROSS NYTIMES.COM

1. James Charles, From 'CoverBoy' to Canceled

In 2016, James Charles became CoverGirl's first male face. It was all up from there—a merchandise line, millions of followers, the Met Gala. Then, with a single YouTube video, it all came crashing down. Mr. Charles is now at the center of an ongoing debate about betrayal among a passionate group of beauty vbloggers. New of that conflict made for Wednesday's most read article.
No, seriously—that's what it says! News of this debate among a passionate group of beauty vbloggers was the most read article yesterday across the entire sweep of the New York Times on line!

Let's start with a bit of fairness. The breaking news seems to reflect on the readership of the New York Times, not on the Times itself.

Presumably, this is the "most read" article to which that passage refers. The New York Times doesn't seem to regard it as an especially significant report.

In today's hard copy editions, the most read article appears at the bottom of page D1. That's the first page of the paper's ThursdayStyles section.

A serious person might scold the Times for spending any time on this world-class bullshit at all. But it seems to be us the people who turned this stupenagel news report into the global super-phenomenon it has apparently come to be. That doesn't seem to have been the principal doing, or the fault, of the Hamptons-based Times itself.

In fairness, fuller disclosure! As it turns out, Mr. Charles isn't simply at the center of a debate among a group of beauty vbloggers. As Valeriya Safronova explains in her seminal news report, a much wider group of future victims of Mister Trump's War is involved in this passionate pigpile:
SAFRONOVA (5/16/19): Mr. Charles is now at the center of an ongoing debate about betrayal among a passionate group of beauty vloggers, bona fide celebrities and the meme-makers of TikTok. He has lost about three million followers on YouTube; Miley Cyrus, Shawn Mendes and Kylie Jenner have all unfollowed him on Instagram.
As you can see, the actual sweep of this debate has been edited down on A3.

It isn't just the beauty vbloggers; bona fide celebrities and the meme-makers of TikTok are involved in this folderol too! As she continues, Safronova describes the world within which this important discussion plays out:
SAFRONOVA: The beauty-influencer world is one in which interpersonal conflicts often play out in videos posted across YouTube channels, with players flinging accusations at each other or apologizing in 15-minute monologues to their fans. The rumor mill they spin into existence is bolstered by coverage from “drama channels,” YouTube accounts that keep track of the gossip and “expose” the wrongdoings of various local celebrities.
The rumor mill the influencers spin into existence is bolstered by coverage from “drama channels," while others keep track of the gossip?

To a sufficiently skilled anthropologist, that description may sound a bit like the way modern "cable news" works! Or so we were told last night, in a visit from a spokesperson for Future Anthropologists Huddled in Caves (TM), scholars who report to us from the years beyond Mister Trump's Bullsh*t-Ending War.

For now, let's set that slander against cable news to the side. Instead, let's consider the fact that this news report was "Wednesday's most read article" across all of NYTimes.com.

An anthropologist might want to say that this tells us something about the mental traits of our self-impressed species, Homo sapiens. It might even remind us of something that happened long ago, during the journalistic era future anthropologists now discuss under a depressing rubric, The Rise of Leadership Down.

It was April 1990. Three years earlier, journalists had hid in the bushes late one night, wondering if Democratic front-runner Gary Hart might have a girl friend who wasn't his actual wife.

Their intrepid journalism ended Candidate Hart. In the end, Candidate Bush went to the White House, but only after Bernie Shaw mugged Candidate Dukakis with an ugly general election debate question about the imagined rape and murder of his wife—a question Shaw's female co-panelists had begged him not to ask.

According to future anthropologists, these bits of behavior help us describe the actual mental hygiene of the human animal. These anthropologists note that the insipid love of "gossip" and potent group "fictions" will often characterize the mental world of such influencers as upper-end journalists, along with the somewhat easily influenced rank and file as well.

At any rate, it was April 1990. It had been three long years since Candidate Hart had been taken down.

Upper-end "journalists" had perhaps become bored, or so these future anthropologists are willing to speculate. Along came media star Diane Sawyer, eager to liven things up.

Howard Kurtz did the report for the Washington Post. Current on-line headline included, his report started like this:
KURTZ (4/20/90): MARLA 'I LOVE HIM'

After two months of silence amid the deafening roar of Trump-o-mania, Marla Maples took to the airwaves [last] night
to declare that she still loves Donald Trump but that "I'm not the reason for that marriage having problems."

In a blonde-on-blonde interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC's "PrimeTime Live," Maples, 26, speaking in a soft, breathy voice punctuated by nervous laughter, skirted most questions about her internationally rumored affair with The Donald, citing "pending litigation" from his wife, Ivana.

But the actress from Dalton, Ga., left little doubt about the once-intimate nature of their relationship, which Trump is said to have ended a few weeks ago, although Maples said she was in Guatemala at the time. When Sawyer popped the $5 billion question—You still love him?—Maples said, "You know, I, I can't lie about it. Oh, I do." She answered the same way when Sawyer asked if it had been a romance, saying, "I do love him."

There were no torrid, BEST-SEX-I-EVER-HAD revelations—in fact, Maples refused to answer Sawyer's BEST-SEX question, but called the quote attributed to her by a friend "an absolute, total lie." She also ducked when asked if she wanted to marry the Queens-born billionaire...
Was sex with The Donald the best Maples ever had? During this high-profile "blonde-on-blonde interview," the actress somewhat sanely demurred when the ridiculous journalist asked.

Indeed, it was Sawyer's role in this big pile of moral and mental trash to which the future anthropologist pointed last night. "Here again," this future scholar told us, "we see the type of conduct now widely known in the future as The Rise of Leadership Down."

Let's offer some background here. Sawyer had gone to one of the finest schools. She'd already married the respected director when she popped the question to Maples.

While Maples was only 26, Sawyer was 44. Six years earlier, she had become the first female correspondent on 60 Minutes, one of the nation's most respected news programs. She was representing the upper-end "press corps" when she popped that insultingly stupid question to Maples.

Anthropologically speaking, Sawyer was thereby helping define the values which would define the parameters of American discourse when she plopped down with Maples that night.

As such, "This is the essence of 'leadership down,' " or so we were told last night by the future scholar to whom we refer. Indeed, the blinding stupidity of Sawyer's conduct that night virtually defines The Rise of Leadership Down.

Please understand! Sawyer's guild was flailing in a wide array of ways during the era in question.

By 1994, "young Americans believe[d] they ha[d] a better chance at seeing UFOs than Social Security checks made out to them when they retire," according to a poll released by a youth advocacy group.

Assuming the poll was on the level, this belief had largely been fueled by the inability of people like Sawyer to explain the way that venerable program worked. Anthropologically speaking, these journalists enjoyed life in the nation's underwear drawers, but were bored, and perhaps a bit overwhelmed, by questions about major matters of substance.

During 1995 and 1996, Sawyer and other celebrities exactly like her were completely unable to explain the basic logic of Newt Gingrich's Medicare proposal.

Was the GOP proposing "Medicare cuts," or was it simply reducing the rate at which the program would grow? People like Sawyer were baffled by this. Their inability to handle that question continued for several years.

Within a few years, loud shouters like cable's Chris Matthews were filling the void with deranged assessments of topics like Hillary Clinton's disturbing behavior on bunny ski slopes and the deeply troubling number of buttons on Candidate Gore's suit jackets.

This was the gruesome era known in the future for The Rise of Leadership Down. Tomorrow, we'll start with Sawyer's interviews with Candidate Gore in 1999 and with Candidate Clinton in 2014.

At any rate, "There was no avoiding Mister Trump's War," one future scholar told us last night. "It was anthropology all the way down, as Sawyer's past conduct makes clear."

By 1990, the rewards for that kind of journalism were simply too damn high. Or so this future scholar said as she returned to the future caves in which her colleagues huddle.

Tomorrow: A truly amazing story! Could it be that The Rise of Leadership Down started with Muskie's lost tears?

17 comments:

  1. You're ranting and raving, Bob. To the extent that someone (not me) might amateur-diagnose it as some sort of insanity.

    Try to concentrate, Bob, please.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello friends! My Name is Wendy from Canada i have had a lot about Dr AKHERE on his good work, for bringing back lost relationship but i never believe because so many spell caster scam me because of my husband who left me and three kids over a year and two months. so a good friend of mine introduce me to Dr AKHERE just because my condition was so bad and the responsibility in my matrimonia home was more than me. my husband left me to another woman just because i don't have male child for him. so i email Dr AKHERE and told him everything, he told me not to worry that my husband will come back and i will have a male child for him. he only told me to believe on him that after casting the spell my husband will come back immediately and beg for forgiveness. he real did it for me and my husband come back to me in the nest two days. i was very happy and thanks dr AKHERE. so, i was in this situation (April 18 2014) i told Dr AKHERE that i will start shearing his testimony to every one in the word if he make me to have a male child to my husband. and he also did it as am shearing this testimony to every one out dear, that am with my new bouncy baby boy. now i believe that i am the happiest woman on earth because Dr AKHERE restore my life in my matrimonial home you can thank him for me or email him for urgent help in any bad situation i promise you he will also help you; his email address is Email him: AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com or
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      Hello friends! My Name is Wendy from Canada i have had a lot about Dr AKHERE on his good work, for bringing back lost relationship but i never believe because so many spell caster scam me because of my husband who left me and three kids over a year and two months. so a good friend of mine introduce me to Dr AKHERE just because my condition was so bad and the responsibility in my matrimonia home was more than me. my husband left me to another woman just because i don't have male child for him. so i email Dr AKHERE and told him everything, he told me not to worry that my husband will come back and i will have a male child for him. he only told me to believe on him that after casting the spell my husband will come back immediately and beg for forgiveness. he real did it for me and my husband come back to me in the nest two days. i was very happy and thanks dr AKHERE. so, i was in this situation (April 18 2014) i told Dr AKHERE that i will start shearing his testimony to every one in the word if he make me to have a male child to my husband. and he also did it as am shearing this testimony to every one out dear, that am with my new bouncy baby boy. now i believe that i am the happiest woman on earth because Dr AKHERE restore my life in my matrimonial home you can thank him for me or email him for urgent help in any bad situation i promise you he will also help you; his email address is Email him: AKHERETEMPLE@gmail.com or
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      Delete
  2. Why do people care about gossip? Largely because they hope it may contain information on topics that are of strong interest to them, such as how to keep their own marriages intact, why men cheat, who is doing what with whom (social current events), and am I normal self-comparisons? Somerby can pretend that gossip is sordid, but he won't stop people from doing it.

    As I have pointed out before here, Somerby has a prudish hang up about gossip that may come from his Catholic upbringing. The attitude that gossip is wrong comes from Catholic teachings that Somerby seems to have inhaled full strength, but is not universally held as a wrong or even as a time-wasting thing by most people.

    Somerby moral fastidiousness is odd in some other respects. Maples was sleeping with a married man who physically abused his then-wife Ivanka, if you believe her autobiographical statements. Does Somerby condemn the abuse or the cheating by Trump? For that matter, does he condemn the adultery Hart committed? No, he blames Sawyer and the journalists. They shouldn't be asking embarrassing questions, which means Somerby apparently thinks wrongdoing should be kept secret. Journalists should collude with wrongdoers to keep their misbehavior secret. It isn't as if Sawyer were asking Trump what sex was like with his wife, which would be highly personal and no one's business. She is asking a home-wrecker whether she broke up a marriage for sexual reasons. But Somerby sees this as prurient because he identifies with Trump and wouldn't want his personal business on the street. He doesn't identify with the wives who want to protect their marriages from the Marla Maples of the world. He doesn't seem to recognize that people identify with celebrities at all, hence their interest in celebrity news.

    Does leadership really consist of suppressing stories (or NOT asking certain questions) to protect celebrities from embarrassment or exposure of their mistakes, greed, sexual abuse of power, or crony favoritism? Sawyer drew the line in a place Somerby wound't have. She is a highly successful journalist and Somerby is not. Might she have a better idea of what people want to read and deserve to know about? Somerby thinks she should help protect the men who philander. Perhaps this change in journalism that Somerby has remarked upon is actually a change in who gets to be a journalist, and with the advent of women in positions previously largely held by men, questions important to women now get asked and men who used to hide their affairs are now being exposed instead of enabled by journalist bros. Was it really a bad thing that we didn't elect Gary Hart, someone who couldn't keep it in his pants and who lied to the press about it, before he could become president and lie to the press about other things? I've never understood exactly how Gary Hart was wronged, but Somerby seems to care a lot about him.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 11:47 has raised muddled thinking and bad writing (or possibly the other way around) to an art form. I can only gaze in awe at the combination of projection, mind reading, evidence-free generalizations, carelessness, and outright errors. You can’t learn this kind of thing; it’s a gift.

      <editor’s rant>
      Somerby has a prudish hang up about gossip that may come from his Catholic upbringing.
      No, just no. Hang up is something old people do with their rotary phones. A hang-up or hangup is an emotional problem, and that’s the thing that comes from Catholic upbringing, not gossip, as your syntax asserts.

      The attitude that gossip is wrong comes from Catholic teachings
      No, it doesn’t, as a few minutes spent in the google. Most religions, not just Catholicism, have strictures against harmful gossip, but the prohibition against even harmless gossip comes from some Jewish traditions.

      Maples was sleeping with a married man who physically abused his then-wife Ivanka,….
      Dear God, no. Ivanka is Trump’s daughter. His ex-wife is Ivana. During her divorce, she accused Trump of rape. He denied it, and she now says it didn’t happen. Who knows what’s true? Certainly not you.

      It isn't as if Sawyer were asking Trump what sex was like with his wife, which would be highly personal and no one's business.
      Please make it stop. Sawyer was interviewing Maples. Sawyer asked Maples if sex with Trump was the best she ever had. Or is that not highly personal and no one’s business?

      He doesn't identify with the wives who want to protect their marriages from the Marla Maples of the world.
      Her name is the plural of the tree. Multiple home-wreckers would be Mapleses.

      She [Sawyer] is a highly successful journalist and Somerby is not.
      Arghhh. Somerby is a blogger. He has no pretensions to being a journalist.

      I've never understood exactly how Gary Hart was wronged, but Somerby seems to care a lot about him.
      You had me at “never understood.” Somerby is saying that we were wronged because we never got to fairly evaluate a potential Presidential candidate.

      a change in who gets to be a journalist, and with the advent of women in positions previously largely held by men,….
      Yeah, what change is that? Gail Collins is still wasting Op-Ed space at the NYT, which still publishes the repulsive Maureen Dowd. Have I missed a sea change in journalism?
      </rant>

      Should we decide that LBJ’s civil rights record means nothing because he cheated on Lady Bird? If we didn’t know of Johnson’s infidelities, would we give him a pass for the Vietnam War?

      Do you admire MLK less for his civic courage because he cheated on Coretta Scott King? Would you consider Newt Gingrich any less repugnant if you didn’t know he was a serial adulterer?

      The sinners will burn your cities to the ground while you’re waiting for saints to save you.

      I think your own prurient interest in the private lives of public figures is more than faintly repulsive and puts you in the company of “Values Voters.” Give that a thought.

      Delete
    2. deadratMay 17, 2019 at 2:44 AM

      Is that performance art?

      If it is, I love it!

      If it is genuine, I still love it, it's still hilarious, but in a very sad way, the way you get sad when you realize how empty some people are.

      Now, let's sit back and enjoy what I have triggered.

      Delete
    3. I'm gonna pop some tags
      Only got twenty dollars in my pocket
      I - I - I'm hunting, looking for a come-up
      This is fucking awesome

      Delete
    4. 7:55A,

      Is that performance art?

      An excellent question. Performance art seems to define itself as everything that fine art isn’t — the rejection of the production of staid and predictable objects like a statue on a pedestal, a painting in a frame on a museum wall, or a performance of a play with a fixed script for an audience at a particular time, each person in a reserved seat.

      I think you still need a “performer,” an “audience,” and some action for the performer to introduce to the audience. Do you require intention on the part of the performer?

      No matter. If it’s performance art, it’s particularly bad performance art. First of all, it’s not nearly transgressive enough. Mao would be a much better candidate, screaming “Dembot!” at everybody on a progressive blog. In fact, he reminds me of the futurismo acting troupes in Italy during the 1920s screaming obscenities at their bourgeois audiences in the hopes of stirring a reaction. My namesake is a better candidate, having appropriated a nym that’s not his to show some talent, I must admit, for poetry. Go here to check out my collation; see above @8:03A for his own.

      Secondly, my work doesn’t distinguish itself enough from the regular medium it occupies. Don’t you think it’s pretty tame stuff? Much like it only better can be found in any comment thread on YouTube or on countless other blogs.

      But here’s a thought you can’t disprove — suppose I’m not one person, but many, college students doing a group project for a course in their Media and Communication Department.

      Here’s another. Perhaps I’m both deadrats as well as all the Anonymous commenters on my threads. Now that would be some performance art! Doesn’t it strike you as odd that such an unimportant, off-topic discussion should prompt such a response?

      If I’m not under oath, I’m glad you love it, but don’t be sad. It seems that your “hilarity” is tinged with sadness for “how empty” I am. Really? Or are you just funnin’ me? Recognize that the call to melancholy is coming from inside your own head. You have no access to mine to plumb the depth of the emptiness. So cheer up.

      Now, let's sit back and enjoy what I have triggered.

      Triggered? As in generated some emotional upset? I’ve been hearing claims like this more recently. Can you imagine a comment from me that would upset you? I’d be surprised if you could. Why would you think it different the other way around.

      Delete
  3. I'm sorry Bob hit on the phrase, "Leadership Down." It's distracting. It makes me think about anthropomorphized rabbits. However, I was glad to see him refer to my wife's alma mater as "one of the finest schools."

    https://www.amazon.com/Watership-Down-Novel-Richard-Adams/dp/B001L9OKZK/ref=sr_1_2?crid=BBC5M74LOZFQ&keywords=watership+down+by+richard+adams&qid=1558022197&s=gateway&sprefix=watership+down%2Caps%2C194&sr=8-2#customerReviews

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Somerby keeps confusing leadership with activism. Journalists report what has already happened. They don't exhort people to get out and do things. They are documenting current events. The leaders are the politicians and candidates on every level, community organizers and heads of non-profits, union leaders, and similar activists who organize around causes to inform people, instigate legislation, organize protests and demonstrations and contact campaigns, and the activists who work toward change in myriad ways. Journalists don't do this stuff.

      Delete
  4. This silliness is usually a feature of gay men and their female girlfriends.Focus in the trivial and unimportant. They have nothing better to do with their time, as the country falls apart around them because we have chosen to be governed by morons.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The “morons” being exclusively non-gay straight white males. FIFY.

      Delete
  5. Hart’s biggest mistake perhaps was withdrawing from the campaign, despite opinion polls showing the public were unconcerned with the allegations and disliked the media’s reporting on the candidate’s sex life. Hart didn’t help himself by re-entering the race a few months later. As with Perot, Hart didn’t do himself any favors by doing this.

    A comparison with Clinton and Trump is also instructive. Both had allegations of sexual “indiscretions” during their campaigns, but both dealt with them and powered through.

    This is not to say that Somerby’s criticism of the media is without merit, but it’s a bit unenlightened to think that naughty media behavior towards political candidates began in 1972. The history of dirty politics and journalistic slander goes back to the beginnings of America. It’s basically a feature, not a bug, although 24-hour cable news and the internet cause it to spread more quickly and broadly than ever before.

    ReplyDelete
  6. deadrat is neither dishonest nor a troll. Both require a modicum of intellectual ability. deadrat
    is, in fact, a moral and intellectual idiot, the Village Idiot of this comment section. He really doesn't know the difference and he doesn't know better. He simply has no capacity to know.

    We don't impute agency to idiots so it's as cruel to criticize him for his failings as it is useless to admonish him.

    ReplyDelete
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