Syndicated columnist Victor Davis Hanson just made a damned fool of himself. I came across him in last Friday’s Tribune wondering “Why do we care about this transient fluff?” as if that’s something new to ask. As if it isn’t a question that’s haunted journalists forever, one that preoccupied bloggers and the MSM alike when the death of Anna Nicole Smith became the biggest story in the world.
Or is my memory playing tricks?
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Hanson got my hopes up when he wrote that Smith and the others “are the modern equivalents of grotesque carnival freak shows that used to provide a perverse sense of escapism from what people dare not face.” That’s when I thought he was on his way to saying something actually useful. Maybe he’d suggest that transient fluff serves a purpose, giving the public respite from critical issues like war and terror it can do little about. Maybe he’d articulate how it helps us consign our heavy-duty troubles to our subconscious, where most productive thinking takes place.
On April 29 the Tribune’s Perspective section carried a piece by Rob Warden of Northwestern’s Center on Wrongful Convictions that called police torture “an indelible stain on the Daley legacy.” It must be one of those below-the-belt stains people don’t notice. Warden expected letters damning him and letters damning Daley, but there were virtually none.
Besides, my problem with police torture, or Hanson’s with America’s trillion-dollar debt to China and Japan, has nothing to do with the allure of transient fluff. We’re not distracted from either problem. We’re simply not facing them. If we did we’d have to do something, Americans being folks who shoulder their responsibilities. And mere posturing, which is plenty good enough for a Don Imus or Greg Olsen, wouldn’t do.
