Mainstream And Social Media

GAZA: “Israel’s odious excuse-making has come to be known as Hasbara. In Hebrew, hasbara is the name of the verb to explain (lehasbir). It means explanation. Exculpatory constructs, assorted Hasbara, serve to coat Israel’s corporeal crimes against humanity with ideological respectability, to give these some imagined purity of purpose. Think of Hasbara as the steady supply of bogus constructs with which to rape reality.”
GAZA: “Polled opinion was not split between Israelis for genocide and Israelis against it. Rather, the division in Israeli society appeared to be between Jewish-Israelis for current levels of genocide versus those for greater industry in what were already industrial-levels and methods of murder.”—ILANA Mercer, “The Jewish State Is Genocidal, But Is Israeli Society Sick, Too?,” May 21, 2024
GAZA: “Israeli media—from Arutz 7, to Channel 12 (‘[Gazans need] to die ‘hard and agonizing deaths’), to Israel Today, to Now 14 (‘We will slaughter you and your supporters‘), and the lowbrow, sub-intelligent vulgarians of i24—are a self-obsessed, energetic Idiocracy. These media feature excitable sorts, volubly imparting their atavistic, primitive tribalism in ugly, anglicized, Pidgin Hebrew. And, each one of these specimen always has a “teoria”: a theory.”—ILANA Mercer, “The Jewish State Is Genocidal, But Is Israeli Society Sick, Too?,” May 21, 2024.
“King Tuck clearly carried the Fox News network and its nits. … Rupert Murdoch will be remembered as the Money Man who fired Tucker Carlson and, by so doing, sank his network.”—ILANA MERCER, “King Tuck, Like Trump, Is Transformational,” June 1, 2023
“Tucker like Trump is transformational.”—ILANA MERCER, “First, They Came For Tucker Carlson; Next Is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,” April 27, 2023
“The foolish firing of their top rated host, Tucker Carlson, and one of the highest-ranking cable news shows in the country, is sure to hasten the death rattle of the War Porn channel. Something just short of total extinction seems a fitting fate for Fox.”—ILANA MERCER, “First, They Came For Tucker Carlson; Next Is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.,” April 27, 2023
“I’ve watched scores of noisemakers on Fox News ‘argue’ against the Critical Race Theory agitprop in education. There’s nothing but humbug from the channel’s holy men and women. Their arguments against the CRT scourge are characterized by a white-out of whites.”—ILANA MERCER, “A White-Out Of Whites: Ignoring The Albino, Dhimmi Elephant In The Room,” May 7, 2021
“This column, now in its 20th year, can attest that writing in the Age of the Idiot is about striking the right balance of banality and mediocrity, both in style and thought, which invariably entails echoing one of two party lines and positions, poorly.”—ILANA Mercer, “How Democracy Made Us Dumb,” By ilana mercer.
“Devoid of discipline and a sense of propriety, and seeking the warm smell of the Fake-News herd, cable’s cretins escape into gossip, feelings and fantasy.”—ILANA Mercer, “The TV Tarts’ Reign of Terror,” The Agonist, April 15, 2019.
“Let me be clear. When I allude to the women of TV, I include those with the Y Chromosome.”—ILANA Mercer, “TV Tarts: Cringe Factor Ad Infinitum, Part 2,” WND.COM, March 28, 2019.
“TV’s tarts all speak in insufferable, grating, staccato, tart tones. Believe it or not, such a depiction is no longer politically proper. The voices from hell have been dignified: vocal fry and uptalk.”—ILANA Mercer, “TV Tarts: Cringe Factor Ad Infinitum, Part 2,” WND.COM, March 28, 2019.
“TV’s tele-tarts focus not on the role of government, but on the tone of government.”—ILANA Mercer, “TV Tarts: Cringe Factor Ad Infinitum, Part 2,” Unz Review, March 28, 2019.
“TV’s empaneled witches and their housebroken, domesticated boys are guided more by the spirit of Madame Defarge than by Lady Justice.”—ILANA Mercer, “The TV Tarts’ Reign Of Terror, Part 1,” Reckonin’, March 21, 2019.
“Those gathered at the Annual Correspondents’ Dinner, or their Christmas party, are not the country’s natural aristocracy, but its authentic Idiocracy. No matter how poor their predictive powers, no matter how many times they get it wrong—in war and in peace—the presstitutes always find time for this orgy of self-praise.”—ILANA Mercer, “Thanks, POTUS, For Breaking-Up The Annual Correspondents’ Circle Jerk,” The American Thinker, May 8, 2017.
“Like nothing else, the annual Correspondents’ Dinner is a mark of a corrupt politics. It’s a sickening specter, where some of the most pretentious, worthless people in the country—in politics, journalism and entertainment—convene to revel in their ability to petition and curry favor with one another, usually to the detriment of the rest of us in Rome’s provinces.”—ILANA Mercer, “Thanks, POTUS, For Breaking-Up The Annual Correspondents’ Circle Jerk,” The American Thinker, May 8, 2017.
“The White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) should have been more appropriately called the Sycophants’ Supper. Would that it was the last such supper.”—ILANA Mercer, “Thanks, POTUS, For Breaking-Up The Annual Correspondents’ Circle Jerk,” The American Thinker, May 8, 2017.
Megyn Kelly: “A serious journalist with a grasp of the enormity of the Trump Revolution; a journalist who didn’t wish to give up on ever again interviewing the candidate, or forever forfeit access to a possible future president, a journalist with gravitas would have labored less at promoting herself and more on mending a professional relationship.”—ILANA (January 29, 2016)
“The Left is going to love Megyn Kelly even more for supposedly intimidating Donald Trump. For Kelly to love herself more is impossible.”—ILANA (January 29, 2016)
On the egos in the an anchor’s chair: “You are not the story. Your job is to get the story.”—ILANA (January 29, 2016)
On why insightful commentators and thinker whose observations have predictive power generally barred from the national discourse, while the usual foolish, false prophets are called back for encores: “The opportunity costs associated with consumption of toxic punditry are low or non-existent. Having their worldview affirmed, even affirmed in a parallel universe, is worth a lot to news consumers, who are keener to avoid the pains of cognitive dissonance than to get the real deal.”—ILANA (“Pundits, Heal Thyselves!”)
“Fox News’ Megyn Kelly has fast succumbed to the female instinct to show-off, bare skin, flirt and wink. She now also regularly motormouths it over the occasional smart guest she entertains (correction: the one smart guest, Ann Coulter). At the same time, Kelly has dignified the tinnitus named Dana Perino with a daily slot as Delphic-oracle.”—ILANA (August 21, 2015)
First Republican presidential debate, 2015: “‘The Murdoch Media’s’ golden goose, Megyn Kelly, henpecks Donald Trump … .”—ILANA (August 14, 2015)
“Brian Williams: member of the media circle jerk.”—ILANA (February 13, 2015)
“Like nothing else, the Sycophant’s Supper is a mark of a corrupt politics and press, as the un-watchful dogs of the media have no business frolicking with the president and his minions. This co-optation, however, is the hallmark of the celebrity press, in general. The days following these glitzy events, the Gilded Ones spend genuflecting to … themselves.”—ILANA (February 13, 2015)
“The annual White House Sycophants’ Dinner is where the most pretentious people in the country—in politics, journalism and entertainment—convene to revel in their ability to petition and curry favor with one another, usually to the detriment of the rest of us in Rome’s provinces. Those gathered at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, or its Christmas party, are not the country’s natural aristocracy, but its authentic Idiocracy.”—ILANA (February 13, 2015)
“The Fourth Estate has moved the country into the Third Dimension. The media lie so much, that when stuff happens that scares them, they no longer know where to turn for the truth.”—ILANA (January 30, 2015)
“The natural aristocracy precludes the political class, which uses coercion and deception to gain ascendancy. Members of the neatly bifurcated networks and pulp press, being mere supplicants to the state, are also excluded from the natural aristocracy.”—ILANA Mercer, “Writing In The Age Of The Idiot,” October 9, 2009
“Failed ‘experts’ for whom public goodwill runs eternal are a feature of discourse in this country. Be it on the ‘merits’ of pulverizing a foreign country or their own country, they dispense dollops of disinformation without denting their status as philosopher-kings.”—ILANA Mercer, “Obamacare’s A Marketplace In The Same Way The Knockout Game Is A Game,” February 14, 2014
“Think of lab rats racing through a maze, when you watch the sub-intelligent, dual-panel ‘dialogue’ conducted on the teli. … Each rat runs with a designated, neatly bifurcated (Republican or Democratic) political orthodoxy. Each is a ‘maze-bright’ rat, and not the possessor and giver of any truth.”—ILANA (January 10, 2004)
“The blow-by-blow, wall-to-wall coverage of the massacre in Newtown—and of every related utterance on the issue since, official or other—is the very essence of the postmodern deconstruction of the discipline of journalism. If there is no edifying information on the case, no reporting needs to take place.”—ILANA (December 21, 2012)
“France’s founding principles of liberté, égalité, fraternité—that blood-drenched, illiberal Revolution and its legacy—leapfrogged across The Pond and took hold in America, where agents like CNN help it spread.”—ILANA (July 13, 2012)
“It’s impossible to miss the sexual overtones. A gleaming flash of dentition, a glowing complexion: when CNN women folk report on Big Daddy O, their fondness is on display for all the network’s 291,000 national viewers to see.”—ILANA (July 13, 2012)
“Cognitive consonance is what writing in the Age of the idiot is all about. The key to success in the scribbling profession is to strike the right balance of mediocrity in writing and thinking, which invariably entails echoing one of two party lines, poorly.”—ILANA (April 13, 2012)
“The dueling perspectives political panel is compatible with the aims of CNN, MSNBC, and the other progressive broadcasters. This format is positively postmodernist. By presenting the public with two competing perspectives—you mislead viewers into believing that indeed there are two realities, and that it is up to them to decide which one is more compelling. The truth is that truth is immutable, never relative. The little truth there is in mainstream media should not be diluted or presented by its adherents as dueling with untruth.”—ILANA (November 18, 2011)
“Members of the media-monetary-congressional complex orbit in privileged circles; all benefit from the freshly counterfeited funny-money dispensed from D.C. On the other hand, the workers of the world are brothers in bondage.”—ILANA (August 26, 2011)
“No matter their brand of political prostitution (Republican or Democrat), media talking heads are props to the politicos; they mirror the political class, reflecting and reinforcing the opinions—and the reality—among the elites they serve. More often than not, the chattering classes are as privileged and protected as their masters.”—ILANA (August 19, 2011)
“The cable commentariat is a cog in the sprawling American comitatus. They all feed off Rome.”—ILANA (August 5, 2011)
“In an effort to create reality on the ground – instead of reporting on it – the American media seem to color events by refracting them through a sickeningly sentimental prism.”—ILANA ( February 19, 2011)
“TV’s Talkers are all uncritical slaves to the ghost-ship of state, provided the pirates at the helm are members of their particular political faction.”—ILANA MERCER, (August 6, 2010)
“Cronkite died the other day; news coverage croaked a long time ago.”—ILANA MERCER, “The Authentic Ass-troturfers,” August 14, 2009
“Good newsmen are a dying breed. Good newswomen are mostly dead already. By the time she died, the brilliant and brave Oriana Fallaci had long since been buried professionally by mediocrities like Barbara Walters of the ‘cutting edge’ anti-aging reportage and colonic crusader Katie Couric.”—ILANA (June 6, 2008)
“I suspect most media cheered for Obama reflexively, rather than consciously—too stupid to ask themselves whether what they were doing was journalism or advocacy.”—ILANA (June 6, 2008)
“The moribund mainstream media is dead from self-inflicted wounds.”—ILANA (February 22, 2008)
“Too Many pundits posing as populists have benefited handsomely from turning folks onto war—pornographically so.”—ILANA (February 9, 2007)
“CNN’s Anderson Cooper is a major culprit in changing the face of news. Forehead furrowed into a perpetual I-feel-your-pain frown, Cooper’s broadcasts are an interminable kvetch that elevates feelings above facts.”—ILANA (June 27 , 2007)
“The media monolith, pitchforks hoisted, has conducted a swift public trial, meant to make an example of Imus, and serve as a warning to all others who fail to march in lockstep, shouting ‘Jawohl!’”—ILANA (April 13, 2007)
“So long as they’re being treated as the demigods they believe they are, media—liberal and illiberal—act like lap dogs to the Big Dogs.”—ILANA MERCER, “The ‘Presstitutes’ Vs. The VP,” October 24, 2014
“In the financial benefits they derived from whooping it up for war, a great many media types were as good as Halliburton war profiteers.”—ILANA (December 4, 2006)
Fox News is full of statists on steroids.—ILANA (January 25, 2006)
“The media talking heads are props to the politicos. As long as they play to the ‘Demopublican Monopolists,’ and sustain the respective parties’ constituencies, media ‘mavens’ will retain their perches, their pensions, and their sizable salaries.”—ILANA (August 8, 2005)
“The commentariat… is a mirror image of the political class, reflecting and reinforcing the opinions—and the reality—of the elites. More often than not, the chattering classes are as privileged—and protected—as their masters.”—ILANA Mercer (August 8, 2005)
“News is not what it used to be because a dumbed-down population, well represented in newsrooms, cannot distinguish evidence from assertion and fact from feel-good fiction. News is now nothing but a slick, demand-driven product designed to please—not inform—the public.”—ILANA Mercer (May 28, 2004)
“Mainstream media seldom fail to shed darkness on whatever topic they tackle.”—ILANA Mercer, “Insider Trading Or Information Socialism?,” June 19, 2002.

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