Subject: Hi from Dallas

Bartcop,

Love the site. Been reading it for a long time now and occasionally try to contribute
some small bit of wisdom I find somewhere to help make it better.

I just wanted to tell you a little about the media and what it has become.

A little over a decade ago, I was a college student majoring in journalism.
I was going to be the next Woodward or Bernstein. I was going to be the one
who stood up for the little guy. I was going to fight corruption and dishonesty at every turn.
I was going to be the voice for those who could not be heard.

Now, keep in mind, as a fellow Oklahoman, my opportunities to do this were fairly limited.
Oklahoma's media outlets are not exactly bastions of free thought.

I perservered, though, and occasionally I was able to inform readers of the newspapers
I worked for about the inequities they suffered at the hands of the policymakers.

The media is almost universally despised by both right and left wings.
Despite that, I was always proud to call myself a journalist.
I say "was" because that is no longer the case.

Even through all the tribulations of President Bill Clinton, I retained my sense
of pride at being a member of the fourth estate. Sure, the media made mistakes.
Sure, the media was too obsessed with whether Clinton engaged in a dalliance with an intern.
But the media was still supposed to be the watchdog, the purveyor of information and the
impartial vehicle of information for the masses.

I still believed that until last November, when it became clear that what pundits had been saying was true.
The media has become little more than a conglomeration of whores and idiots.
At that point, I began pursuing a career change.

Luckily, I found a job as an internet developer in Dallas.
A couple of benefits -- it got me out of Oklahoma.
I am no longer represented by Jim Inhofe (widely regarded as the dumbest man in Washington),
JC Watts (the poster boy for treason),
Ernest Istook (who apparently has never read the First Amendment to the Constitution) and
Frank Keating (the most amoral, unethical, incompetent, two-faced, heartless, spineless,
toadying, big-headed wimp the state has ever seen).

Additionally, I have moved to a state where George W. Bush is no longer the governor.
I am firmly convinced that Texans voted for George W. simply as a way to get him out of Texas.

I still consider myself a journalist, but I am no longer a member of the media. I still seek the truth,
but not the truth as defined by Rush Limbaugh, E.K. Gaylord*  or Paul Harvey. Perhaps someday I will
rejoin the fourth estate and I do intend to return to the proper side of the Red River someday.

Until then, keep the flags of discontent flying and rest assured you are not alone.
Someday, we will find our collective spine and rise up against the tyranny of Kind George and his ilk.
It may take four or (Koresh, help us) even eight more years of the disastrously incompetent governance
of G.W. and the Reagan Elite. Someday, the masses will realize how severely they were duped and they
will embrace the truth as espoused by the hard-working and underappreciated independent thinkers like you.

Keep up the good work.

Your loyal reader,
Will
 

That Gaylord character is the head Freeper in Oklahoma.
He owns the Daily Oklahoman, OKC's newspaper.