How else to explain these covers:
Time has an extremely readable article on the Talibanization of western Pakistan. Given that nation's critical importance to the "war on terror," this is an important and fascinating article. Time put the article on the cover for every edition except the U.S. version. Why?
Newsweek did something similar in September:
Registran:
In other words, while it might be nice to learn about how American policy is failing in the country that actually attacked us on September 11, the mainstream glossies seem to think we’re more interested in lesbians who photograph celebrities and the Kansas Board of Education.
And it's not just news magazines. FOX "News" remains fixated on Anna Nicole Smith. Host John Gibson went so far as to accuse reporters who focused instead on the Iraq War of “news-guy snobbery”.
Rush Limbaugh just called 72% of Americans "blithering idiots" for thinking something’s wrong about the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.
Maybe this is why House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) does not know how to pronounce Tuskegee Airmen properly.
During his short speech to those in attendance, Boehner six times mispronounced the group’s name as the “Tusk-E-gee,” eliciting audible groans from the front to the back of the Capitol Rotunda. One woman standing in front of me leaned to her companion and whispered, “This is so embarrassing, and he’s from my state.”
Perhaps making matters worse, almost all of Boehner’s speech focused on the general accomplishments of American forces in World War II, paying little direct respect to those in the room.
As if to remove any doubt about the verbal kerfuffle, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell took the stage and began his speech by pronouncing the group’s name correctly, while making a clear, if passing, glance in Boehner’s direction. Immediately afterward, the entire crowd broke into applause at the correction.
Dumbing down of America, indeed.
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