Katha Pollitt, bad 'poetess' and columnist for The Nation magazine, wants to create "message discipline" among reporters. Katha's "message discipline" includes passing herself off publicly as a Democrat. She's not a Democrat. "Message discipline" for Katha is hiding her entire life in a political closet. "Message discipline" is what the Communist Party used to preach, after all. Katha's used to "message discipline," she's just not used to independent thought.
And that may be the most unsettling thing about Katha and Journolist. See, to be a columnist, you have to appear authentic. Your opinions must appear to be your own.
So, for example, if you write the following publicly in September 2008:
John McCain chose the supremely under-qualified Sarah Palin as his running mate partly because she is a woman. If you have a problem with that, you're a sexist. She talks incessantly about being a mother of five and uses her newborn, Trig, who has Down syndrome, as a campaign prop. If you wonder how she'll handle all those kids and the Veep job too, you're a super-sexist. "When do they ever ask a man that question?" charges that fiery feminist Rudy Giuliani. Indeed, Palin, who went back to work when Trig was three days old, gets nothing but praise from Phyllis Schlafly, James Dobson and the folks at National Review, who usually blame all the ills of modern America on those neurotic, harried, selfish, frustrated, child-neglecting, husband-castrating working mothers. Even stranger, her five-months-pregnant 17-year-old, Bristol, gets nothing but compassion and respect from Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh and others who have spent their careers slut-shaming teens for having sex--and blaming their parents for letting it happen.
You shouldn't have written the following privately August 30th, 2008: "Unfortunately, palin is kind of cool. she's not a brittle pastel- suited nut, like some of the eagle forum types. if she weren't in politics, we would probably really like her."
Katha Pollitt wrote that . . . for private consumption.
All a columnist has is the trust people place in them. When they betray that trust, when they wore it out, they not only disgrace themselves, they destroy the bond between journalist and reader.
"We can’t be passive. she won’t destroy herself," insisted Katha on Journolist, advocating for destroying Sarah Palin.
In the September Nation column, she insists, "Count me as a feminist who never believed that being PTA president meant you could be, well, President."
Really?
That's grossly sexist. And, by the way, what's so awful about being president of the PTA? We would assume a successful PTA president might know a great deal more than a failed community organizer, for example.