Eric Boehlert’s takedown of ABC’s The Note is absolutely delicious. And I say that will the full knowledge that such suck-up-ery is exactly the type of thing that Boehlert finds so offensive about The Note. Here’s a choice excerpt.
In theory, what drives The Note is anything that’s generating Beltway buzz. “We try to channel what the chattering class is chattering about, and to capture the sensibility, ethos, and rituals of the Gang of 500,” Mark Halperin, ABC’s political director and founder of The Note, once explained. Too often, though, The Note’s definition of buzz has been whatever Beltway Republicans are chattering about. The Note has been nourished on an era of total Republican rule. It shows.
Too cool for school
The first thing you notice about The Note is that it sounds like it’s written by high school students. Smart high school students–really smart students, even–but nevertheless teenagers who crack themselves up with their wit, rely on hard-to-decipher references to up their hip insider quotient, and have a penchant for words like “ginormous” and multiple exclamation points. Cutesy, creepy, and relentlessly effusive towards the media elite, The Note confirms the old adage that life really is like high school, with The Note filling the role of cheerleader-meets-yearbook editor, keeping tabs on where the cool kids are eating lunch, what they’re wearing, and who’s having the big party this weekend.
The smackdown just gets better from there. For example:
Interestingly, although the tone of The Note is often too-cool-for-school, it never crosses over into actually being edgy. In fact, The Note doesn’t mock conventional wisdom so much as idolize it. It’s been dismissive of Democrats, reluctant to dwell on Bush’s second-term collapse, eager to dwell on Terri Schiavo (at first), scornful of the Downing Street memo, uninterested in Iraq, nostalgic for Clinton-era scandals, fearful of Republican attacks, and generally awestruck by the Bush White House and its galaxy of all-stars.
So true. I had to stop reading The Note because it was not doing anything good for my blood pressure. I really do not like the Gang of 500. I consider them both my political enemies and one of the largest reasons for the dumbed down level of political debate in this country. They don’t care what anyone thinks outside of their gang, and they won’t take any responsibility for getting a story right. They’d rather just gaze at their own navels. Don’t read The Note. It will make you stupid and, quite possibly, turn you into an asshole.
