Monday, May 15, 2000 Made to measure for the media Mark Steyn National Post (Canada) http://www.nationalpost.com/ Back in the Sixties, when he held one of Britain's oldest Cabinet posts, Edward Heath, the Lord Privy Seal, was greeted by a foreign dignitary as "Lord Heath." Mr Heath explained that, though Lord Privy Seal, he was neither a lord nor a privy nor a seal. Likewise, yesterday's Million Mom March: there were neither a Million, nor did they March, and, while most were Moms, their mommyness was not their defining characteristic. Instead of marching, they milled on Washington's Mall, listening to keynote speaker Rosie O'Donnell. Instead of a million, the Moms themselves downgraded expectations to 100,000. I see my friends at The Sunday Telegraph in London persist in referring to the "so-called Million Mom March," but no such niceties trouble the U.S. media. Perhaps like Heinz's "57 varieties" the formulation is now so familiar that only a boorish literalist would require it to be accurate. But at least, when the Rev. Louis Farrakhan started this thing with his Million Man March, the old race-baiter and wacky numerologist was insistent that one million living, breathing, countable African-Americans would be present. There weren't. But a deluded nutcake crazy enough to believe he can draw a crowd has more integrity than the Moms' last-minute attempt to pre-spin their low turnout. As to their maternal status, Wednesday's Washington Post put it this way: "The Million Mom March was conceived last August in a suburban New Jersey mother's living room." Donna Dees-Thomases "called a few friends, and they called a few friends, and within a week they had an idea." Ah, citizen activism, you can't beat it. According to ABC's Elizabeth Vargas, she's "a typical mom." According to Diane Sawyer, Ms. Dees-Thomases has "never really organized anything larger than a car pool." According to NBC's Lisa Myers, she's "a suburban mom, too busy with her two daughters and a part-time job to pay much attention to politics." Car pool, 'burbs, daughters, Jersey: you get the idea. In fact, Ms. Dees-Thomases used to pay quite a bit of attention to politics: she was a staffer to two Louisiana Democrat senators, Russell Long and Bennett Johnston. Perhaps she snoozed her way through those jobs, spending most of her time on the phone organizing car pools for fellow soccer moms. But she's been paying enough attention to politics in recent months to be a contributor to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign. Still, maybe she was just helping out a family member: Her sister-in-law, Susan Thomases, is Hillary's closest political advisor. Just to round things out, even that reference to "a suburban New Jersey mother's living room" is only technically accurate. Although Ms. Dees-Thomases is "a suburban New Jersey mother," the living room in question was in her other home on Fire Island, the hedonist playground long favoured by fetching young men of a certain persuasion. If there's anywhere that could use less gun control, it's Fire Island. The last time I was there you could barely find a leaf within nine feet of the ground: the deer population had grown beyond the ability of the local vegetation to sustain it. But, alas, this is not hunting country: for Fire Island's menfolk, the thrill of the chase lies elsewhere. So the trees have been defoliated as high as the whitetail can reach and many of the poor beasts now look as emaciated as the louche chaps lounging on the beach listening to their Bette Midler CDs. But "The Million Mom March was conceived last August in a gay resort community by a Hillary Clinton donor who's never organized anything larger than a Democratic senator's office" doesn't have quite the same ring, does it? And why should ABC, NBC, The Washington Post and The New York Times be expected to know any of this? Just because half her surname might have rung a vague bell is no reason to leap to conclusions and assume she's connected with Susan Thomases -- any more than it would be wise to assume from the other half of her name that she's related to Rick Dees and his Cast of Idiots, whose Disco Duck was a Number One hit in 1976. But, speaking of Casts of Idiots, what about CBS? By now, you may be curious about that "part-time job," as NBC coyly referred to it. A couple of waitressing shifts? A little secretarial work for the school district? No, Donna is a part-time publicist for David Letterman's Late Show. Before that, she was a full-time publicist for CBS news anchor Dan Rather. CBS This Morning was one of the first news shows to report the Million Mom March movement last September, when Hattie Kauffman interviewed Donna. "What," asked Hattie, "turns a mild-mannered suburban mom into an anti-gun activist?" The correct answer is: "A leave of absence from my employer, CBS, which, by remarkable coincidence, is also your employer, Hattie." But that's not what Donna said. Only in the last week has CBS News begun disclosing that she's one of theirs. As to Ms. Dees-Thomases' work for those two Dem senators, not one U.S. newspaper or TV network has mentioned them, with the exception of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News Channel. Mr. Murdoch, as we know, is a malign influence seeking to use his media outlets to further his sinister personal agenda. Try it the other way round: "Barbara Amiel Black was a typical Toronto housewife with no interest in politics until she decided to start Housewives For Massive Tax Cuts. 'As a typical housewife,' she says, 'I know what it's like when an ordinary working stiff like Conrad comes home every night and says, Geez, Barb. Not Cheez-In-A-Can on a second-hand Pop Tart again.'" Or: "Canada's Moms for Monarchy Movement was conceived last August by Elizabeth Windsor, a typical mother of four struggling to balance the needs of her family with the pressures of work. Liz, who's never organized anything larger than a Royal Tour, says she'd always been too busy signing bills into law and giving Throne Speeches to pay much attention to constitutional matters." Every year, tens of thousands of pro-life women descend on Washington on the anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision. And every year they're buried at the foot of the "Local News Briefs" on page E29. When you remark on the contrast between their perennial obscurity and the delirious coverage of the Milling Mall Moms, the news honchos say, "Ah, well. That's because the Million Moms are so much more media-savvy." What kind of kinky post-modern response is that? Don't worry, we're not biased, we're just easily manipulated, and who better to manipulate us than Dan Rather's press agent? I believe Dan when he says "liberal media bias" is one of the great myths. Although various recent polls show that half of all Americans live in households with guns, think Dubya is better on gun control than Al Gore, and have a positive opinion of the NRA, I'm willing to accept that no one who works in the CBS newsroom knows anyone who belongs to that half of the populace. But what happened with Donna Dees-Thomases goes beyond "bias": In essence, America's major news outlets colluded in the perpetration of a fraud on their audiences. It's not the first time. When John F. Kennedy Jr. died last summer, the comparison routinely invoked was the death of Princess Di. But, in fairness to those ululating Brit morons, the Di hysteria was at least a bottom-up phenomenon. The British media were caught off guard by the thousands of mourners swarming into London and filling the streets around Kensington Palace with mounds of flowers and teddy bears. The American media, by comparison, simply invented it. The "floral tributes" outside John-John's apartment were only ever shown in close-up, because not only did they not begin to match the fields of tributes in Kensington, there was barely any more of a memorial than the roadside bouquets you see on the edge of a state highway when some anonymous kid gets hit by a drunk. Heigh-ho. The non-March is over now, and the non-Millions are relaunching themselves today as a political lobby group. Good luck to them. [But yet again those old Soviet hardliners can only marvel: They spent decades smashing presses and jamming transmitters in an effort to shut down the flow of information. America's achieved that happy state just by leaving it to ABC, CBS and NBC. --MS] ================================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> *Mike Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ~~~~~~~~ <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends Shalom, A Salaam Aleikum, and to all, A Good Day. ================================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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