Saturday, November 14, 2009

Paging Mr. Clooney or Mr. Sinatra...

Those gentlemen used their respective eleven-man contingents to rob casinos. The Associated Press uses their eleven-person group to fact-check a 430-page book.

Health-care bill with monumental impact on our economy and society. Two wars, one of which is under serious scrutiny by the administration as it develops a policy to move forward. Potentially renewed housing finance crisis regarding FHA. U.S. Army major shoots and kills 14 fellow soldiers on his own military base after years of warning signs he might be dangerous. U.S. Treasury decides on a second bailout of General Motors' finance arm, GMAC. President makes first trip to Asia. Attorney General decides to try 9/11 planner in federal court, rather than military commission. Nine states, including some of the country's most populous areas, face possibly disastrous budget shortfalls. Our nearest neighbor to the south has actually asked for United Nations peacekeepers to bring back order to Ciudad Juárez, a city right across the Rio Grande from El Paso, TX, that's seen more than 2,000 murders so far this year out of a population of 1.5 million due to the drug trade and organized crime (New York City, with more than 8 million people, expects fewer than 500 murders in 2009).

These and a baker's dozen of a baker's dozens of issues are facing people today, needing some serious digging, explanation, context and examination, and the Associated Press assigns eleven people to produce a 700-word "fact-check" of Sarah Palin's book.

Someone wrap up the "free press" clause of the First Amendment for storage until we're ready to use it again.

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