August 21, 2007

Nielsens for the 'Clerisy'!

Given Michael O'Hanlon's notoriety of late, I thought I'd pop over to his Brookings bio, just out of curiousity. There was this snippet:

O’Hanlon has written at least a dozen op-eds in each of the following newspapers: The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Times, and The Japan Times. He has also contributed to The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and many other papers. O’Hanlon has appeared on the major television networks more than 150 times since September 11, 2001 and has contributed to CNN, MSNBC, BBC, and FOX some 300 times over that same period. [my emphasis]

It occurred to me reading this how empty these tabulations of media appearances are, though of course I know this is how the game is played so as to move up the 'seriousness' food chain. But is it too much of a stretch to surmise op-eds like his splashily boosterish cri de coeur to see "sustainable security" through are tailored some to keep these television appearances coming (look 'ma, lefty Brookings guy sez 'surge' working!)? Who knows, and I don't mean to impugn O'Hanlon personally, but rather am making a more general point about that certain Washington class that rushes Sunday AM to see where their 'quote' was placed in a Week in Review piece in the Times, say, or how prominent the billing they got on some asinine anchor's show on CNN or Fox. It's all so provincial and petty finally, no (especially when you think of the millions of refugees this war has created, hundred thousand plus dead, billions squandered, and national repute dragged through the mud)?

Almost makes you nostalgic for the days when one was expected to be in the papers three times: birth, marriage, and death...

This is an example of a general trend of DC solipsism that Cullen Murphy identifies in Are We Rome? I didn't expect a lot of the book, but it is a good, if disturbing, analysis of some of our policymaking ills.

Posted by: Tripp at August 23, 2007 09:18 PM | Permalink to this comment

Anybody who would speak of several hundred appearances on cable news shows as an accomplishment is, well, it reminds one of a 2nd string quarterback on a bad football team who boasts of having entered the game in the fourth quarter and passed for two touchdowns after his team fell behind 49-0. Somebody was going to get paid to perform the job, the context was completely trivial, and nobody with an ounce of sense paid any attention.

Posted by: Will Allen at August 25, 2007 04:06 AM | Permalink to this comment