For a Jew, Bill, and a boss, I would rate you about on par with the
anti Christs who killed Jesus and the Elders who sold the ghetto Jews to the Nazi's
for forced labor. You were a dirty bastard to Donald Trump but my paychecks
always cashed like the ones written to Pontius Pilate and Adolf Hitler.
McLaughlin soon gave him a nickname: “The Beadle.”
In the Catholic high schools where McLaughlin had taught, the student appointed “Beadle” took attendance, passed out papers, erased the chalkboard, and otherwise assisted the teacher. A Beadle was a teacher’s pet, a goody two-shoes. Why McLaughlin gave Fred the title remains something of a mystery — but it rolled off the tongue. And it certainly contributed to the overall chaotic, free-associative, semi-absurd atmosphere of The McLaughlin Group in its heyday.
As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
I was showing TL a picture of that prick Stamer of the UK, and yes I know his name is Starmer, and I told TL, laughing, that he reminded me of Fred the beadle Barnes in looks. So I looked up Fred and showed TL the picture and then I came across and article of one of his proteges who got it. I mean by got it, he dissected the reporting and written commentary of Fred Barnes and understood how to communicate with readers.
I remember the John McGlaughlin when he gave Fred the nickname Beadle and asking Barnes if he knew what it meant and Barnes snarled that he did. I didn't and have not known for years until I read that article as I do not have time to look up words.
Communication is everything whether it is a President Trump meme or an Elon Musk tweet. You have to get to the point. Writing is a craft, so is speaking, as it is telling a story. You have to hold the attention of your audience. The longer you have them with you, the longer you have to massage them and please them. As Lincoln said at Gettysburg, it is different in a short address and a two hour speech.
Most people now do not know how to communicate or transfer information into the human mind. What we have in most cases is a visual media in a psychic tear. McGlauglin in partly to blame on that, as where his genius was as Barnum, the lessers have produced a schism of not very talented people doing Eleanor Clift screeching for attention. It is turning up the volume in a movie to shock and audience into submission, instead of acting the part to entertain the audience.
Some of you may have noticed the name Bruce Chilton. He was some religious theologian McGlaughin had on. I wrote him and explained things. This asshole wrote back that I was vacuous as an insult. That is why the vacuous Bruce Chilton appears together, as he was a stick up the ass prick, and the thing is, in one vicious reply, he is now linked to being vacuous as no one reads his books, but the Lame Cherry is forever and I define what he is and I write the epitaph. Now who is the genius and who is the vacuous asshole?
John McGlaughlin had to evolve. He was born of Richard Nixon in that genius of cut throat politics. Pat Buchanan was another warrior in that group. The people who McGlaughlin chose were self assured and could communicate. They were people you could respect like Jack Germond the liberal, because they were reporters who knew the beat and did not much respect anyone they reported on. You can not be a good story teller if you are sucking the dick of the subject, as fawning does not make a good story. What makes a good story is biting them in the ass after you pull their pants down and expose them as human.
At the moment, I think of the money I would have if I was part of the old dinosaur media which got USAID kickbacks in CIA Mockingbird. I think of what I would be making now as the best blogger in the world, if people actually read anymore. GENS are such a waste as most of them have not the grasp of the written word, or the ability to take someone with words on an emotional enjoyment which they will cherish. The GENS for the most part are synthetic opium dope heads, they want the quick spike and to move on.
We were watching the old Doctor Who with Tom Baker to the Doctor Who with that bitchy Scottish red head and TL even expressed how the Tom Baker episodes were slower and more enjoyable and were not filled as I stated with screaming, large sounds and quick edits to make up for the lack of story.
There is an artform to being a blogger but what good is art when when the world is wiping their ass with the canvas of a DaVinci painting.
Fred taught me how to be a journalist. Not directly. My education came through study, observation, and imitation. I acquired the unusual hobby of reading (and re-reading) the magazine’s back issues. They were my textbooks. I saw how Fred started his pieces with anecdotes, filled them with examples, and ended with clever kickers. I noticed his short sentences. I followed his example of profiling up-and-coming politicians.
What Fred captures best is the competitive drama of politics. He fills in the details of the personalities running the horse race. And he does it with wit and verve. The first thing you notice about Fred’s prose is its speed. The subjects and verbs fly by. They don’t have to worry about commas slowing them down. Like most great writers, Fred writes like he talks: direct, blunt, and sometimes gruff. This terseness, however, is enlivened by his quick wit and biting judgments.
Fred taught by example. He spent a lot of time reading the papers — the physical newsprint — and so did I. I got to see how Fred treated interviews not as interrogations but as conversations. And then there were Fred’s quips during editorial meetings and watercooler talk. They were unforgettable.
He told an intern struggling over an article, “This ain’t Balzac!” He complained that people didn’t do enough reporting: “There’s one person whose opinion alone is worth reading: Charles Krauthammer.” He reminded me that you lose half your readers every time you make them turn a page. He loved Calvin Coolidge’s saying, repeated by Senator John Tower, that you never get in trouble for what you don’t say.
Time to close this thoughtful little project out without much thought, other than the Beadle, gone like the wind, as what can you say after, "The world is wiping it's ass with DaVinci paintings as they can no longer comprehend what art is". Not much to follow up on that.
Nuff Said
agtG
