Land of the Fake? Or should that be "Flake" ?

Will Rogers once observed that there there types of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.

Had Mr. Rogers lived to experience our brave new world he might have added that there are three kinds of fools: Fools, Damned Fools, and Media Fools.

I channeled Will Rogers as I read this article by Dick Meyer. I've never liked Myers in part because I'm always getting him confused with Dick Morris. On top of that he works for CBS.

Here Meyer (no he's NOT the one of the famous toe incident) bemoans how "fake" everything and everyone is in tacky old worn out America. Nothing is real, everything is scripted blah blah blah.

He actually briefly grasps a good point or two when he properly castigates the shallowness of most of our entertainment and political discourse. But then he takes a head first dive into the stupidity barrier with this humdinger:

"An important quality public people who garner our confidence seem to share is an ability to be genuine and b.s.-free. It's hard to come up with a long list, but a short list might include John McCain, pre-Bush Colin Powell, Don Imus, Jon Stewart and Oprah Winfrey."

Good grief. Putting aside McCain, Powell and Imus for the moment, this turkey actually holds up Jon Stewart and Oprah Winfrey as role models of authenticity? What an unmitigated idiot.

Jon Stewart is a comedian who makes his living exaggerating real events and inventing imagined ones. Oprah is a less violent but much tearier version of Jerry Springer. No matter how much one may admire Oprah the person, her show is a celebration of all things gooey and glitzy.

In this context John McCain, Colin Powell, and Don Imus are also jokes as far as I'm concerned. Whatever their talents, and they are considerable, if they represent the best in authenticity that this country has to offer we are in worst shape than Dick Meyer imagines.

And by the way, if Powell was "genuine" how did George W. Bush change him? Does W have a anti-genuinizer that he runs people through?

Gee Wally, if Colin changed due to Evil George doesn't mean he wasn't "genuine" to begin with?

I have no idea what Meyer was trying to accomplish with this garbage, but he has made a Media Fool of himself with the effort.