Since when does the television critic's column become a forum for left-wing rantings and ravings on the same order as blogs posted to the Dails KOS and Huffington Post?
Apparently none of that matters to one of the nation's shoddiest major newspapers, The Baltimore Sun, a cheesy knockoff of its former owner and sister paper, The Los Angeles Times. It's hard to believe that this is the same paper that under the Abell family ownership was one of the nation's most respected papers with highly skilled reporters manning bureaus around the world and highly respected commentators. Today's Baltimore Sun is little more than a sickly combination of a gossip rag and soap box for the extreme left of the entertainment industry.
Case in point is an entry by television reporter, David Zurawik, who found a relatively obscure cable program to review, the Learning Channel's, American Chopper, a program dedicated to motorcycle enthusiasts. In the episode recently broadcast, the story came from Alaska and featured a 'cameo" performance.
Okay, here's the perspective, an obscure program, and the focus of the entire review is on a "cameo" performance.
Perhaps mentioning Alaska gave it away, the subject of Zurawik's contempt was none other than Sarah Palin about whom he wrote:
After seeing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on TLC's American Chopper Thursday night, don't you just think she's made for reality TV? She was phony, over the top and absolutely empty of anything that would pass for a thought.
Next he mentioned her role was, "...what amounted to little more than a cameo appearance."
The balance of his column goes on to trash Palin viciously with much focus on his fascination and horror that she actually sat on a bear skin cover on her couch.
While not mentioning anything else about the program and devoting all his attention to tearing apart Ms. Palin, he finally concludes cynically:
I love it. Palin has found her level in reality TV. I wish the producers of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here had thought of Palin after a federal judge ruled that former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich couldn't travel to the jungles of Costa Rica for this summer's show. Would Palin not have been the perfect replacement?
As for now, if she wants to appear on reality TV, I think we should treat her like a reality TV performer.
We'll give Zurawik credit for not hiding behind any nuance or formalities. He hates Sarah Palin and is happy to tell his audience so. However, what does this have to do with a television column and what place does it have in what is supposed to be a mainline major city newspaper? If his comments were written on a higher intellectual level, this is the kind of material that belongs on the op-ed page, but the irony of the column is while Zurawik attempts to establish what a moron Sarah Palin is, the old principle of one should be careful to point his finger at someone else because he'll always have three fingers pointing back at himself. The Sun's television critic shows himself to be nothing more than an angry lightweight who is shit-face drunk on the ultra left Kool Aid.
While we do not believe Sarah Palin is the future of the Republican party for numerous reasaons, we do admire her integrity and courage. Speaking of her shortcomings in this regard is a conversation for another day. Once again, in the context of how heavy handed, abusive, and out-of-bounds the media's treatment of her is, we must emphatically stand in her defense.
It's little wonder that big city newspapers are in such financial distress. While they face the challenge of staying relevant against the media and 24 hour television cable news, their product has deteriorated in many markets to being little more substantial than the Daily KOS and Huffington Post. In fact, when it comes to what they cover, the Huffington Post is at least on the level of many newspapers for the material it covers.
While the New York Times teeters on the verge of bankruptcy, the parent company of the Baltimore Sun, the Chicago based Tribune Company, the nation's second largest newspaper publisher has already filed. While a well-written, highly professional, broad based newspaper still serves a vital function in the community, when readers look at a product like the Baltimore Sun, as this column serves well to demonstrate, their demise in their present form translates to, goodbye and good riddance.
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