12 Aug 2004 An Acceptable Reality

Jeff Jarvis is all over the McGreevey story. So is Clayton Cramer.

Personally, I thought McGreevey’s speech was quite possibly the dopiest thing I ever heard. “One’s unique truth” — bletch! No such thing! There is truth, and there is falsehood. Not a bunch of little unique truths.

I know this because I looked “deeply into the mirror” of “my soul” and realized it. Or maybe thinking so is just one of the “virtue[s] of my traditions.” Bletch again!

McGreevey said: “I began to question what an acceptable reality really meant for me.” For me it means no more blatherskite speeches like this!

Addendum: I’m watching Arianna Huffington tell Keith Olbermann on MSNBC that McGreevey’s speech was powerfully moving or some such blather. Triple bletch! By the way, did anyone notice that although McGreevey praised his wife during the speech, he did not glance at her even once while doing so — even though she was standing next to him? That’s not natural behavior if one means what one is saying. Now Arianna is claiming we should “celebrate” this speech…

However, the interview does have one redeeming characteristic: Olbermann let Huffington complete a thought. That’s more than Chris Matthews let a representative from Veterans for Kerry and John O’Neill do on the immediately-prior show on MSNBC tonight. Every time the two guests started to tell their version of a story, Matthews interrupted them. It might have been an interesting show, but Matthews refused to let the viewers to hear enough to be able to compare the contrasting views of the two guests.