No Great Shakes

Apart from the lunatic-asylum cry of the cicadas, it is very hot and quiet here on the shore, the stillness reminiscent of a Faulkner novel set in the summer, as I believe nearly all of them were. It has been a momentous week, so much yet to comprehend from the fall of Castle Murdoch, where fires seem to be breaking out in so many towers. What mystifies me is the request of Republican Peter King that an investigation be made into whether 9/11 victims were the targets of phone-hack attempts. Not only is this out of character for King, a familiar scowling face on Fox News, but the 9/11 angle is the most flimsily sourced of all the revelations this week--a straw in the whirlwind. Does the chairman of the Homeland Security committee know something to which the rest of us aren't yet privy, something gleaming ominously in the deep dark? If so, Rupert Murdoch may run out of heirs and chief executives to sacrifice to the gods of outraged opinion.

I do wish however that pundits would quit comparing the Murdoch phone-hacking clusterphuck to "a Shakespearean tragedy." Despite the wealth, power, and magnitude of his media empire, Murdoch has no Lear depths and mind-tattered poetry; he's a colorless king, mean and un-self-reflecting, his own chasms hidden from him. The ill he has done on several continents, the death toll from the wars his journalistic outlets have reflexively, ritualistically championed, the degradation of politics into hand-puppet psychodrama (Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, et al), cannot be undone by apologies proffered under duress. Without the exclusive about the phone hacking of Milly Dowler, he and News Corp probably would have gotten away with everything and gone smugly into the night. No, if the fall of the house of Murdoch is a tragedy, it's the feel-good tragedy of the century.

[One of the best tickers for keeping up with breaking developments in the phone-hacking clusterphuck is Eric Boehlert's Twitter feed, where the feuding with Andrew Breitbart is lagniappe.]

Source: http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2011/07/apart-from-the-lunatic-asylum-cry.html

Viktor Yushchenko Nancy Pelosi Speaker Pelosi Tea Party Joe Biden