Mencken-izing

One of the curious side-effects of a Political Crisis is that it does not just strike politicians.

It goes after pundits, too. With a vengeance.

Perhaps the best-known example I can come up is the career of H.L. Mencken. Mencken was THE premier newspaper columnist of the 1920s, his attitude that of the detached cynic, the enemy of Populists and the self-satisfied. His stuff was rip-roaring funny, as if Will Rogers never meant met a man he did like.

Then came the crisis known as the Depression, and people stopped laughing at Mencken. The idea that everyone in Washington was an unredeemed idiot wasn't so funny when people were hungry and desperate for someone to have a Clue, or at least pretend to one.

So it was that he lost his place. In his case this gave him more time to work on Heathen Days (his multi-part autobiography) and The American Language (first published in 1921).

Most pundits aren't so lucky. Nor so talented.

One reason today's media figures are so stuck on Bush (and his acolytes) might be the knowledge that, as his Thesis falls, so might they. And they will.

So now might be a good time for some of them to look for a soft landing someplace. Because the longer they keep flogging the Bush Administration's lies, the more certain their own professional doom becomes.

And despite Mike Allen's attractive hairline (above), he doesn't have Mencken's talent. Same thing for the rest of you bozos. The more you lie, the angrier we get. And you're a lot easier to replace than a politician.