You can't tell what the Supreme Court is going to decide just by listening to the questions the justices ask and then convincing yourself that your own breathless interpretation of their attitude must indicate how they will cast their vote.
You can't tell what the Supreme Court is going to decide just by listening to the questions the justices ask and then convincing yourself that your own breathless interpretation of their attitude must indicate how they will cast their vote.
You can't tell what the Supreme Court is going to decide just by listening to the questions the justices ask and then convincing yourself that your own breathless interpretation of their attitude must indicate how they will cast their vote.
You can't do that even if you're a commentator whose head regularly appears magically in other people's Tee-Vee boxes. I've heard almost nothing all day but excited or gloomy attempts to do precisely that with regard to the rigorous and skeptical way of the SCOTUS while questioning the gub'mint and its state opponents on the health-insurance mandate. They're the nation's highest judges; they're SUPPOSED to ask tough questions, question their own assumptions, and all that sort of thing. Nobody really knows how the vote will go until it actually goes.
Thank you, Dino! I've been having this same conversation with a friend who has been traumatized by the talking heads who think that they can predict the future based on two days of oral argument and questions. Hell, they don't plan to release a decision until June. Who knows what they will do?
ReplyDeleteI'm sending her the link to this post and insist that she repeat it 500 times!
This is exactly what passes for journalism today; SPECULATING on outcomes rather than waiting for, and reporting, the facts AS THEY OCCUR!.
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome, Sheria.
ReplyDeleteWith my simple and tiny mind, I can see the silliness of instant lib-headlines like "Obama's Supreme Court Disaster" (Mother Jones) and "Obamacare on the Brink" (HuffPo). I suppose such panic and dismay are products of the 24-hour news cycle -- some arguments are hashed out, something is said for and against, and commentators have to churn up something to say: BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS! BREAKING NEWS!
Okay, okay ...
ReplyDeleteYou can't tell what the Supreme Court is going to decide just by listening to the questions the justices ask and then convincing yourself that your own breathless interpretation of their attitude must indicate how they will cast their vote.
You can't tell what the Supreme Court is going to decide just by listening to the questions the justices ask and then convincing yourself that your own breathless interpretation of their attitude must indicate how they will cast their vote.
You can't tell what the Supreme Court is going to decide just by listening to the questions the justices ask and then convincing yourself that your own breathless interpretation of their attitude must indicate how they will cast their vote ...
May I stop now? I hafta ... goto ... (ahem) ... the bathroom.
Paul Waldman offers a bold prediction. Give that man a blackboard and a piece of chalk!
ReplyDeleteRTS,
ReplyDelete"This is exactly what passes for journalism today; SPECULATING on outcomes rather than waiting for, and reporting, the facts AS THEY OCCUR!"
That bears repeating, but it's too much work to type it out 500 times so I'll just do it once in boldface.
Thank you, mille grazie, merci beaucoup, arigatou gozaimashita, gracias, spasiba, 谢谢。 Xièxiè, and [insert proper dino dialect for "thank-you"].
ReplyDeleteI've had to listen to friends and family call me in distress, asking me what I think will happen NOW!
As you properly stated, "You can't tell what the Supreme Court is going to decide just by listening to the questions the justices ask and then convincing yourself that your own breathless interpretation of their attitude must indicate how they will cast their vote."
Since news cycles last only a few days, something else will draw attention away from this subject and we'll be wringing our hands over that quite soon.
bloggingdino - Quite well stated. I was actually thinking the same thing myself over the last three days. Many I am sure will be surprised when the decision is finally passed down.
ReplyDeleteSuch is life in the age of infotainment. I can't watch these flurries of speculative "analysis" without cringing, watching these commentators and experts blather on for an hour about one minute's worth of facts.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of nonsense is just the national equivalent of when the LA newschoppers get on a high speed chase, and they interrupt programming to go live (because, ratings go up when death is on the line) and leave the on-air talent to fill the blanks with chatter in spite of knowing little or nothing about what's actually going on. It's extremely painful to watch, as they intersperse solemn pronouncements about the dangers of high speed chasing with blind speculation as to the circumstances of the case.
What the modern-day media does is basically the same thing -- they do not have the actual story they're covering because it's not done yet, so they're left to flail about with what limited information they do have. Right now they've got a lot of candidates out there stirring up interest in this topic, so for the sake of ratings (since death is on the line, only on a grander scale) the infotainment industry must produce content.
In order for this to change, the viewing public would have to switch channels in droves, but it's really very much like a car accident -- it's just so hard to look away.