I wish to go firmly on the record affirming, re-iterating, underlining and otherwise repeating amen after amen to Barney Frank who firmly and comprehensively contextualizes so much of what needs to be said;
“In this terrible situation, let’s be very grateful that we had a well-funded, functioning government. It is very fashionable in America … to criticize government, to belittle public employees, talk about their pensions, talk about what people think is their excessive health care, here we saw government in two ways perform very well,” Frank said on CNN’s “Starting Point,” noting the cooperation between state, local and federal authorities.
To which the emminently sane, and sanely emminent, Charlie Pierce re-contextualizes:
There is not a single remarkable thing in there. There is not the shadow of an untruth. There is not a whisper of a misstatement or the hint of a lie. There is a wildness in our politics these days, and that wildness is centered primarily, and to varying degrees, around the notion that government is an alien thing.
(Charlie has also been doing yoemans work on Rachel Maddow and on the new Hayes on the block show… Hayes, in particular, has been a bright spot in reportage with regards tot his event, you should check ’em out)
The entire world descends on Boston for the marathon every year. The very fact of that alone, that so many people can come here and NOT disrupt the day to day life of the city is testament to the fact of well run and high functioning government: everybody in the world, who aspires to run a marathon, aspires to run THE Boston Marathon. The bombing was just one more event layered on a thick slab of functioning government for a world class city. One of the victims was a Chinese national, I’m giving to understand. One of the people already questioned was a Saudi national. The winner of the mens elite division was an Ethiopian, the womens winner was a Kenyan. The man who won the wheelchair division was Japanese. First in the womens wheelchair was an American. Such a collaboration and a diversity is RARE across the ENTIRE GLOBE save in a select few cities: AND NOWHERE IS IT POSSIBLE WITHOUT GOOD GOVERNMENT.
And I saw the videos. I watched the bombs explode. I saw civilians running away and I saw caps running towards. I saw cops, who’d been on duty since 12AM Monday work round the clock and some are still working. The next time I hear a complaint about cops salary, benefits or retirement package I’m going to scoff: as far as I’m concerned, whatever it is it’s not enough. I watched people tear into barricades heedlessly to assist the injured. I saw the Governor on top of the situation from minute one. I saw the firefighters and the staties move smoothly and professionally. I saw a government function well in an extreme situation: The world watches and they watch the REAL, FUNCTIONAL government of the City of Boston and the CommonWealth of Massachusetts run a marathon and this year they saw that very same REAL and FUNCTIONING CommonWealth also absorb an attack and keep going.
Oh, and one more thing: so much of the reporting for the first 12 to 24 hours was spectacularly, flagrantly, and grossly erroneous. Our media is, to be utterly frank, failing egregiously. This, of course is nothing new: just about every ‘major’ story I’ve seen in the past decade has followed this pattern; a flurry of facts, most wrong and sometimes contradictory, followed by a lull where no introspection gets done… And, to be sure, mistakes get made in the heat of the battle. What’s upsetting is that this trend is worsening and no journalist, editor or publisher is, apparently, bothering to do anything at all about it: where’s the editorial ‘post mortems’? Where’s the corrections? Where’s the sit-down with editor and reporter where they figure out what, exactly, they got wrong, why they got it wrong and how to avoid future instances of purveying false information?
Here’s a free hint to the Boston Globe: I’ll still read your paper if it contains an honest “we don’t know”. I won’t read it if I can’t be sure that the information is accurate and vetted. The same goes for any and all websites: an honest “no information yet” is a million times better than a blizzard of half-facts, innuendos, rumors, guesses and echoes… I’m a patient man and I’d rather wait to get the truth than to have lies shoved at me full speed.
…this guy isn’t saying such things in the Senate. The last thing we need is a passionate advocate for doing what’s right on issues such as immigration and gun control. I fell much better with senator what’s-his-name making sure the office doesn’t get musty.
On Davids post with Colbert’s show, I liked that he also managed to praise Dukakis and bash the Governor’s Council in the same piece, which was just brilliant written and articulated. Glad to see him get more national exposure as well, he is one of the harder working and witty newspapermen left in our fair city, and a great voice during this time of tragedy.
Hard to argue with Sabutai, Mo has been rather invisible.