This explains everything:
If memory serves (and it may serve somewhat poorly), there was once a Twilight Zone episode which went something like this:
A young man is transferred to a distant location. When he arrives, local residents seem odd, but he learns to fit in. He falls in love with a young woman, and they marry. When his wife is badly injured in a car accident, he looks at her badly broken arm. He sees wires coming out. She’s not human.
Here at THE HOWLER, we often think of this Twilight Zone episode when we read the work of our “press corps.” As we’ve told you, they just can’t be human. Consider the way Dowd began her piece in yesterday’s other-worldly New York Times:
DOWD: Can we trust a man who muffs his mufti?
Trying to soften his military image and lure more female voters in New Hampshire, Gen. Wesley Clark switched from navy suits to argyle sweaters. It’s an odd strategy. The best way to beat a doctor is not to look like a pharmacist.
General Clark’s new pal Madonna, who knows something about pointy fashion statements, should have told him that those are not the kind of diamonds that make girls swoon.
Is there anything more annoying than argyle? Maybe Lamar Alexander’s red plaid shirt. Maybe celebrities sporting red Kabbalah strings.
After General Clark’s ill-fitting suits in his first few debates—his collars seemed to be standing away from his body in a different part of the room—a sudden infusion of dandified sweaters and duck boots just intensifies the impression that he’s having a hard time adjusting to civilian life.
If Dowd broke her arm, would wires emerge? We cut-and-paste, you decide.
And yet another sign of the impending apocalypse:
Meanwhile, how about the good news here? Because of Dowd’s buffoonery in yesterday’s Times, the lion has finally laid down with the lamb! In his eponymous web site, Andrew Sullivan properly scolded the Times addled scribe. And he did so by quoting Paul Krugman!
During the 2000 election, many journalists deluded themselves and their audience into believing that there weren't many policy differences between the major candidates, and focused on personalities (or, rather, perceptions of personalities) instead. This time there can be no illusions: President Bush has turned this country sharply to the right, and this election will determine whether the right's takeover is complete.
But will the coverage of the election reflect its seriousness? Toward that end, I hereby propose some rules for 2004 political reporting.
• Don't talk about clothes. Al Gore's endorsement of Howard Dean was a momentous event: the man who won the popular vote in 2000 threw his support to a candidate who accuses the president of wrongfully taking the nation to war. So what did some prominent commentators write about? Why, the fact that both men wore blue suits.
This was not, alas, unusual. I don't know why some journalists seem so concerned about politicians' clothes as opposed to, say, their policy proposals. But unless you're a fashion reporter, obsessing about clothes is an insult to your readers' intelligence.
7:48:36 PM 
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