Blame It On the Buck
An old adage says, “Those who can’t do, teach.” The Chautauqua Center for Entrepreneurial Initiative espouses a corollary dictum: those who can’t make a living doing something constructive gripe about those who are making a living doing something constructive. Some jamoke named Glenn Greenwald is the latest in a rash of whiny nincompoops and public nuisances to whom that dictum applies. One could hardly catalog Goofy Glenn’s myriad delusions — nor would any constructive person spend the time — but here’s a beauty: he’s the author of a book called, How Would a Patriot Act? which is billed as a “critique” of the Bush administration’s use of executive power. What in the world would Gutless Glenn know about patriotism?
Pop Quiz #1: For fifty percent of your grade, do you imagine this clown will write a critique of the Obama administration, even though the topic is rife enough to require multiple volumes to cover the abuses of executive power in just the first six months of Obama the Omnipotent’s reign?
- Hint #1: Groveling Glenn’s a lawyer, too, just his like his buddy, Barack the Blameless.
- Hint #2: Not on your life.
The latest bug up Galled Glenn’s balmy bum is the fact that General Electric, which owns MSNBC, wants to muzzle Keith “The Crank” Olbermann. Who wouldn’t? The Crank hasn’t had a coherent articulation since he left ESPN. It seems MSNBC wants Olbermann to tone down his demented diatribes against Bill O’Reilly. Love O’Reilly or hate him, The O’Reilly Factor is the most-watched program in all of cable news. Why? Because O’Reilly makes sense to more people than does the lunatic Olbermann. Why wouldn’t GE want to keep the feathers of millions of prospective customers unruffled? But that logic escapes Gloomy Glenn. His beef is that he sees The Crank’s ranting and NBC’s corporate interests as being “unrelated”. Here’s a slice of his peculiar naivete:
[Olbermann's muzzling] was motivated by the belief that such criticism was hurting the unrelated corporate interests of GE [then Glenn abandons logical connections to write] … A G.E. shareholders’ meeting, for instance, was overrun by critics of MSNBC (and one of Mr. O’Reilly’s producers) last April [if the meeting was overrun by GE shareholders, how did MSNBC get unrelated to GE's corporate interests?] … So here we have yet another example — perhaps the most glaring yet — of the corporations that own our largest media outlets controlling and censoring the content of their news organizations based on the unrelated interests of the parent corporation.
Whew! I guess I feel better about the fact that Groping Glenn is clutching at straws to write incongruous gibberish for Salon, rather than trying to interpret the law for a corporation, the profit motives and employment potential of which he’d never understand. And I know I feel better for every poor schmoe he’s not representing in court. But come on. The dude’s 42 years old, and he’s this clueless?
Pop Quiz #2: For the remaining fifty percent of your grade, of which of the following concepts is Green Glenn utterly unaware:
- Corporate policy
- Organizational codes of conduct
- Employees having to abide by 1 and 2
- Any cerebral phenomena other than his feelings
- All of the above.
Okay. So, I took it easy on you. You’re welcome.
One last question, which isn’t part of any exam but should have been part of Guarded Glenn’s education: How does a guy like this manage to remain so sheltered? I was introduced to the ways of the world and the reality of obeying rules at the age of three:
My family was going to the shore for a vacation. My father told me to stand on the sidewalk, which rose a foot or so above the curb, while he put my younger brother in the car. That was the rule. He always put my brother in first, then he lifted me in. Not this time. As soon as he turned his back, I took a step toward the embankment. I lost my balance, fell forward like a tree, went forehead first onto the edge of the door sill, and my noggin was as broken as the rule. We detoured to the emergency room on the way to the shore; and I received my first stitches, my first lesson in trial and error, and my first painful taste of breaking the rules. But that error didn’t keep me from trying again. And the breaking of rules neither eliminated them nor made me unfailingly heed them; although, the pain of that first break did teach me to respect them and to know them before I broke them.
Creating requires rule-breaking now and then. If you’re not creating, you’re waiting. If you’re not making, you’re taking. I have no idea what people like Gun-shy Glenn are waiting for. I have no idea why he doesn’t realize the buck Jeff Immelt is making for GE trumps the buck The Crank is taking from Jeff Imelt. But he doesn’t.
So, like all of the whiny waiters and takers we study here at the Chautauqua Center, he exercises his last resort: he blames it on the buck.