Not quite a funeral for a friend

Thank you, Mr. Froomkin:

Today’s column is my last for The Washington Post. And the first thing I want to say is thank you. Thank you to all you readers, e-mailers, commenters, questioners, Facebook friends and Twitterers for spending your time with me and engaging with me over the years. And thank you for the recent outpouring of support. It was extraordinarily uplifting, and I’m deeply grateful. If I ever had any doubt, your words have further inspired me to continue doing accountability journalism. My plan is to take a few weeks off before embarking upon my next endeavor — but when I do, I hope you’ll join me.

Dan Froomkin may be finished at the Washington Post, but he assures us this isn’t over. Keep your eye on WhiteHouseWatch.com for future developments. And take comfort that the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University will continue to carry his work.

Eulogies abound. I will get to those later. Maybe.

Onion peelings

So, what do you do when the light turns blue with orange and lavender spots?

Sometimes, you know, I wake up and suddenly I’m in a bad movie.

Or a Monty Python sketch.

Or, worse yet, a cliché.

And it does no good to pinch myself, or mutter, “One, two, three, wake up!” No, no. We’re stuck here, you and I.

Fuck.

And we thought the press was bad in America

And to think that we Americans complain about our press.

Sure, we have impotent anchors like Brian Williams, and tarted up “CNN babes”. And, of course, there is the ever-outrageous FOX News, but whether we yell and scream about corporate—or “establishment”—media, the liberal press conspiracy, or even Bush-era propaganda programs, I confess I’m stuck for finding something to compare with what I’m hearing from across The Pond. The inimitable Mark Steel explains the situation:

The Sun newspaper has come over a bit modest. Following a Channel 4 documentary about media reporting of Muslims, the paper accepts some of its stories were “distorted”. But they’re not doing themselves justice. They weren’t distorted – they were entirely made up. For example, a story about a Muslim bus driver who ordered his passengers off the bus so he could pray was pure fabrication.

But if reporters are allowed to make up what they like, that one should be disciplined for displaying a shocking lack of imagination. He could have continued, “The driver has now won a case at the Court of Human Rights that his bus route should be altered so it only goes east. This means the 37A from Sutton Coldfield will no longer stop at Selly Oak library, but go the wrong way up a one-way street and carry on to Mecca. Local depot manager Stan Tubworth said, ‘I suggested he only take it as far as Athens but he threatened a Jihad, and a holy war is just the sort of thing that could put a service like the Selly Oak Clipper out of business’.”

Then there was a story about “Muslim thugs” in Windsor who attacked a house used by soldiers, except it was another invention. But with this tale the reporter still claims it’s true, despite a complete absence of evidence, because, “The police are too politically correct to admit it.” This must be the solution to all unsolved crimes. With Jack the Ripper it’s obvious – he was facing the East End of London, his victims were infidels and he’d have access to a burqua which would give him vital camouflage in the smog. But do the pro-Muslim police even bother to investigate? Of course not, because it’s just “Allah Allah Allah” down at the stations these days.