Anthony Weiner, Bobby Kennedy and Me

I liked Rep. Anthony Weiner a lot.
I liked his sense of humor, I liked that he was friends with people like Ben Affleck and Jon Stewart, I liked the way you could still detect a hint of Brooklyn scrapper in his mannerisms even on the floor of Congress.
But what I liked about him most of all was what I think most of my fellow fans liked most too: the fact that he didn’t pull any punches on issues he cared about, even at the cost of diplomacy. Last summer, I saw him on the House floor furiously railing against an attempt to obstruct a package that would provide 9/11 first responders with health care, wielding words like “gentleman” and “shame” with such righteous fury that he might as well have been saying “motherfucker”. At a time when I was thoroughly disillusioned with the complacency of Democratic leaders in Congress and the White House, Rep. Weiner came off as a dedicated rogue cop, waiting outside Chief Pelosi’s office to be told that he got results, but dammit, she did NOT approve of his methods. Clearly, he was a man unafraid to fight the good fight.
Then it turned out he’d been sending pictures of his dick to women who weren’t his wife.
I think his decision not to resign over it was the right one; unlike Eliot Spitzer or current Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, he didn’t do anything illegal, and it doesn’t affect his ability to serve his constituents. That said, I’m still really pissed about the whole thing.
First of all, I’m angry that Weiner’s deception has given credibility to notorious liar and journalistic Antichrist Andrew Breitbart, who helped break the story; we sure as hell didn’t need to see Breitbart’s rumpled, petulant, perpetually drunk-seeming ass on television any more than we already do. But more than that, I’m pissed at a man who seemed so genuine for turning out to be so completely full of shit.
I’m not so naïve that I believe any politician is spotless; you don’t get there in the first place without having a lot of the same skills that make people effective used car salesmen. And yeah, I knew that a lot of Weiner’s high profile had to do with his not-so-secret desire to succeed Michael Bloomberg as mayor of New York (a goal I imagine he’s scratched off his list by now). But Weiner was just so relentless in his attempts to avoid owning up until it was absolutely unavoidable that I was a little revolted by it (that, and the betrayal of his wife). The Anthony Weiner I admired would have come clean early and gotten back to doing his job. Again, I know I probably deserved it for thinking any congressman was above it all, but it was a nice idea.
Speaking of nice ideas, today is the 43rd anniversary of the death of one of my heroes, Robert Francis Kennedy; what always struck me about Bobby was that he seemed like America’s last hope, an ideological pallbearer for first his older brother, then for Dr. King (and even, if you want to get really metaphysical, the badly damaged idealism of the beginning of the Johnson years) who had survived it all and could help renew us. And yet, I’m well aware Bobby wasn’t perfect; he authorized a wiretap of King when he was attorney general, and he had a reputation as a ruthless political operator. And I honestly don’t know what kind of president he would have been; things were so fucked up at that point that it honestly might not have been possible that anyone was good enough to be the right man to fix things. But none of that really matters, because Sirhan Sirhan’s bullets both shattered that hope and canonized Bobby, making the man not just a fallen human being but, post-mortem, the very idea of hope. Maybe that’s why, long after his death, he still captures my imagination so much. And this isn’t just some starry-eyed, liberal idealist thing; there’s no way Ronald Reagan’s divorced, tax-raising, former union-president, amnesty-granting ass would ever win a primary today. But that doesn’t matter, because his admirers are in love with Reagan the idea, not Reagan the man. And sometimes, for better or for worse, that’s what matters. Me, I’m trying to get off the idea of heroes. There’s nothing wrong with finding a role model and using them for guidance, but if you want somebody to do everything according to how you would do it, the best way is to do it yourself.

The Good with the Bad

Recently, as some of you may have noticed, I had a brief fit of journalistic frustration (which is like sexual frustration, except Brian Williams has experienced it) at the fact that CNN was running iReports on whether or not android songbird Rebecca Black was pregnant ("This report has not been vetted", noted the story, which is generally an indication that you should not run it). In this fit, I found myself doing something I don't remember ever doing, for multiple reasons: getting nostalgic about the '50s and '60s. Let me explain: yeah, if you were black/a woman/Jewish/Richie Cunningham's brother who mysteriously disappeared, they kinda sucked. But (I thought at the time) here's one thing they had on us: actual news was on the news and in the papers, and bullshit was in tabloids. But, as is usually the case with nostalgia, I soon remembered it wasn't that simple. Take Jack Kennedy; the guy had more girls on the side than a cannibal's buffet plate (albeit slightly less than Warren Harding, apparently), but the media wouldn't touch it. Seems cool at first, if you don't think anyone's consensual sexual activity is actual news (it isn't), but this seeming benefit is endemic of what was a serious problem of the era: the media of the time simply didn't scrutinize the president. While this isn't a problem when it comes to their private faults, it helped enable some of the worst transgressions of the Johnson and Nixon administrations. Woodward and Bernstein did a lot to prove that dirt-digging was not only permissible, it could be vital to the workings of democracy, but it wasn't until the Clinton administration that we really opened Pandora's box ("Pandora's Box" is a pornographic remake of "Avatar"). Clinton's Monicagate or whatever dumb name we've given it was the first time a man with Kennedy-esque proclivities had come to power in this era of increased media scrutiny, with the rich and famous no longer on pedestals. And agree or disagree on the whole thing, Clinton's investigation and impeachment wouldn't have been possible without the burgeoning internet. So here we had the people at the top finally being held to account, and regular people were involved. But here was the issue: it was over something completely trivial. In the modern era of online hyperconsciousness, things aren't much better. We've got access to more information than ever before but by and large, we'd rather use it for bullshit. The controversy over Time choosing Mark Zuckerberg over Julian Assange for their Man of the Year is emblematic of the two warring factions: would you rather have all the answers, even if they make you uncomfortable, or would you rather Poke someone? Here's the thing, though: that's a false choice. Yes, the modern world of information-sharing allows for way too much petty triviality to pass through, but it allows the things we need to know as well. I'll take a thousand Tweets about how good this sandwich is if it means one on-the-ground picture from the Jasmine Revolution. I guess what this whole piece comes down to is one question: is it worth having to extend Rebecca Black's fifteen minutes for a media apparatus that can truly watch the watchmen? And the answer is: oh, hell yes.

Just Beat It

The final presentation for Messner's class was today; I feel like it went okay. I'm concerned my latent "Pahk yah cah in the gahden" accent may have flared up a few too many times, but I'm sure that won't be a huge deal. Our slideshow should be up on Richmond.com soon, so I'll make sure to post a link.
Oh, and since I very rarely get to tart up for journalistic purposes, here's what I wore.

As much as I've bitched about it, I think I'm gonna miss Messner's class; it's stressed me out plenty, but in doing that, I understand that it's been great for me as far as doing The Dance. And of course, the people were great too.
In other news, Scott called me in at Style today, and told me he wants me to have some kind of regular feature where I spout off about local issues (he says he's liking my editorial writing, he just wants to give it more of a Richmond focus). It'll essentially be something like a Richmond version of this:

This is a pretty big deal for me, and I'm excited, especially since I'll have more time to follow local news with school just about done. And if there's a local issue you think should get more coverage, drop me a line. See you beautiful people around.

Osama bin Laden, interconnectivity and accidental journalism

"Ar scáth a chéile a mhaireann na daoine (we all live in each other's shadows)." -Irish proverb

This past weekend, a loathsome maniac who did horrific damage to New York was cut down to size in a place he expected to be safe. And after Donald Trump went to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, Osama bin Laden was killed.
If you're like me, you probably didn't learn that for the first time when President Obama made the announcement; rather, Twitter and Facebook were abuzz with the news about an hour early, while Obama was still preparing and news desks were asking when it was okay to even speculate. That's right; after bringing down Hosni Mubarak, the Damn Kids with their social media Tweeters decided to scoop the news media and the leader of the free world. I couldn't look away from my Facebook feed the night of the announcement, just because it was all so damn cool. "Wow," I thought Aspiely, "I'm witnessing history being documented as it occurs. Cool." (I'm not much more articulate mentally than I am in person.) On some level, I wanted to take a screenshot of the entire thing and preserve it somewhere. "Where were you when you heard?" "Online, making tasteless jokes about it."
But the role of social media in the story of bin Laden's death didn't end there. Some of you may have heard about the Pakistani computer programmer who accidentally documented the entire raid via Twitter; I couldn't help but be reminded of another case of "where were you when you heard" that was accidentally documented, that is, the Zapruder film. As I thought about that and I looked at my feed, at an ever-expanding picture of the zeitgeist, I couldn't help but think that everything had changed, for the world in general and for journalism in particular. Every one of us is becoming our own news archive, and at the risk of sounding like an after-school special, we have, I think, a responsibility to be the face of our time that we want to show the future. Can you imagine how you'd feel if you found your grandfather's Facebook status from the forties about how much he hated the Japanese?
I realize this post is starting to get kind of meandering and Aspielicious (kill me if I ever say that out loud), but given the nature of the point I'm trying to make, I think that's forgivable. Rene Belloq was wrong; we're no longer just passing through history. And now, I'm gonna close with this disheartening image.