After taking time out this week to dispatch their one-time idol Andrew Cuomo to the graveyard that is the political promised land (let this be a lesson how fast such political falls can occur, oh sainted Dr. Fauci …), the mainstream media has returned to its regular programming: a full-throttle attempt to cow leaders across the country into keeping students out of classrooms yet again this school year.
This media drumbeat is not exactly subtle, and is rooted both in a quest for ratings and to press home a one-sided political narrative: fear good, common sense bad.
Expect the hysteria and selective reporting to ramp up, particularly as those school systems that already have youth back in class have to grapple with the inevitable COVID cases that are simply going to be par for the course for our foreseeable future. Grow up and face facts, America: The pandemic is now endemic. We either accept it now or accept it later, your call, but accept it we eventually must.
It is rather infuriating that cable-TV news, whose collective ratings are virtually nothing (ratings leader FOX News has less than 1 percent of Americans tuned in at any given moment, CNN and MSNBC not even that much), are able to direct public policy as much as they can.
And whether our local school districts get back in class by the end of the month as announced, or not, you can be sure the leaders therein have their fingers already hovering above the “eject” button, ready to bolt back to “virtual” at the first sign of even modest trouble.
Helluva way to run a railroad, as the saying used to go.
ENDING ON A HIGH NOTE: Having spoken above of the pending departure of Andrew Cuomo to the political promised land, how about a rendition of that Chuck Berry classic by none other than Elvis Presley, just to cheer up the mood?
Coming up below.
(As an aside, once when Chuck Berry was appearing on the Johnny Carson show, Carson asked him if he had ever spent time with Presley. “Yes … well, when he was alive,” Mr. Berry responded. Chuck was the greatest!)
- Scott McCaffrey