ARTICLE: "At Pundit School, Learning to Smile and Interrupt," by Ashley Parker, New York Times, 26 October 2008.
An actual school for would-be on-screen pundits and talking heads, here is where you learn to "carve [your ideology] into bite-size nuggets--preferably ones that end with a zinger" and "to avoid questions" you don't "like."
The article blames Tucker Carlson for blazing the trail, and follows the schooling of one Peter Freire, who at 26 has been a managing editor of "The American Spectator" for all of 9 months.
Well, hell, man! That's all the credentials you need to blow smoke out your ass on TV!
It's nice to know that all the IQ-reducing fare on news networks has its own pipeline. As for the young pundits who flock to this school, better to become famous before you achieve anything of value.
And keep those zingers coming!
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Comments (1)
I might point out that the Leadership Institute though a non-partisan organization is a self declared conservative organization. The Democrats don't have anything like this. I'm the President of the College Democrats of Connecticut, and we do training but nothing on the level that the Leadership Institute is able to do. What liberal organizations offer are grass roots training courses from groups like 21st Century Democrats or Wellstone Action. I think understanding the underlying education behind a party's activists gives you an insight into the party itself. The conservative movement is far more effective at training its young activists, progressives on the other hand have a lot more youth activists. These young activists grow up into politicians, and, in my opinion, that's why Republicans are better at staying on message, while "blowing smoke out their asses."
Posted by Karl Grindal | December 1, 2008 11:15 AM