Categorical Aperitif

Wow. Apparently, I missed a humdinger of a waste of time last night.

• Greg Mitchell: "perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years."
• Will Bunch: "I said I was dreading ABC's performance, but this is 10 times worse than I expected it to be."
• Tom Shales: ABC's "usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances."

Good old ABC News. I rarely bother watching TV "news," but it's ironic: one of the last times I actually sat down to watch an evening newscast, ABC World News with Charles Gibson insulted my and every American's intelligence with that pathetic manufactured Hey! Look! Two guys-who've-cheered-on-the-war-and-"The Surge"-for-years-but-we'll-pretend-they're-war-critics-anyway now say "The Surge" is working! propaganda exercise discussed here. "Usually dependable"—right.

I try to avoid thoughts like this, but I find myself wishing that there were stocks on the National Mall or someplace like that and that every media celebrity who's taken a big paycheck in return for degrading the national discourse and insulting the national intellect could be sentenced to a turn in them. It could be part of every childhood pilgrimage to the capital: stand reverently in the Lincoln Memorial, climb up the Washington Monument, pelt Charles Gibson with garbage. Maybe we could train a webcam on the stocks or feature them on a dedicated C-SPAN channel so people who can't visit Washington could share in the cathartic thrill. It's a crabby, mean-spirited vision, but it's mine.