Jacko-Free Blogging
We political bloggers sometimes fall prey to our own obsessions, and I'm sure some of us are gripped by the delusion that the whole hep world is breathlessly tuned into the Social Security debate, the bankruptcy bill, or the various machinations of Karl and Grover and HoHo, or the jesuitical DLC. But let's get real: none of this stuff is more than a tinny little sound compared to America's real preoccuption these days: the trial of You-Know-Who.
Now I'm sure that traffic-savvy bloggers like Wonkette (or the Substitute Wonkette, or the Wonkette-Mini-Me, or whoever the hell is womanning that sex-and-booze-soaked Font of Hilarity these days) will constantly find ways to use interest in the West Coast Offense to draw readers to the latest batch of Washington Gossip. But I'm going to be a Real Democrat and stand up for my values here, and declare NewDonkey an official Jacko-Free site. I don't care if political news gets so slow that I'm writing about GAO reports on traffic-light synchronization; I just won't go to Santa Maria.
Although it violates the religio-ethical principal of Avoiding the Near Occasion of Sin, I am not swearing off references to anyone named "Jackson." Jesse, Scoop, Andy--these are all legitimate Jacksonian topics. But no Moonwalking, I swear.
In taking this hard line against Jackocentrism, I expect at least a few emails accusing me of blogo-snobbery. That's not fair. I'm one of the few political bloggers who regularly uses "ain't" and "sho nuff" and other crackerisms. Unlike David Sirota, I learned my populism at my grand-daddy's knee back in the day, not by working on some 2004 campaign. And with March Madness on the horizon, I'll certainly be watching a lot of cheesy beer-and-junk-food commercials and heading for the kitchen with Pavlovian regularity.
But you have to draw a line somewhere, and as Martin Luther famously said: "Here I stand; no other can I do."
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