Jodi Wilgoren Sucks

Yes, it's been a while since I talked about her. But she's got another god-awful article in today's New York Times. God forbid a speaker tailor his or her speech to a local audience, despite what they tell you in speech classes.

Wilgoren wonders, it seems, "How dare John Kerry attempt to connect with an audience?" Then she mocks him for occasionally flubbing a line on tour. Is there any right answer for this woman?

And isn't she supposed to be a goddamn reporter? I don't care if she's tired of Kerry's jokes. The story is that they're playing well to his audience (when delivered correctly). Kerry is out on the stump, working really hard, doing the politician thing. And he's doing a lot better than anyone in the press expected (remember all of that bullshit about Kerry being "patrician" and "wooden" and so forth?). Apparently, the people at Kerry's campaign stops enjoy the jokes--that's what we should be reading about. Who gives a fuck about Jodi Wilgoren's reaction? Who died and made her ass god?

No doubt Bob Somerby will be on this tomorrow, doing a much better job of tearing Wilgoren a new one than I ever could.

My point (well, one of them, anyway) is that what Wilgoren is doing isn't reporting--not in the usual American understanding of what that entails. She's editorializing. She's clearly displaying to the reader that she's bored, and that she looks down on the rubes at these events:

At a sweltering rally here Thursday evening in the Southwest corner of the state, Mr. Kerry observed that many in the crowd of some 10,000 people were wearing "shades" and exclaimed, "You look like a band of beavers," Oregon's state animal. Then the Democratic presidential nominee showed off his savvy on the small-town sports rivalry between nearby North Medford and South Medford high schools.

"I'm going to take a lot of tough positions here today," he promised, "but I am not going to choose between the Black Tornados and the Panthers." In case anyone was not yet convinced that Mr. Kerry was paying attention to where he was, he held aloft a locally grown pear and exulted, "I am smart enough to leave with some of these!"

It's hard to keep from gagging when I read that second paragraph. Isn't there an editor at the Times who's supposed to read her copy and tell her that this drivel doesn't even deserve to be printed in the Weekly World News?

Well, we can dream, can't we?