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Recently in Salon Media

Media
"When Moguls Attack!"
Don't mess with the Big Mouse: Disney's Eisner pays back archnemesis Katzenberg by whacking Dreamworks pilot.
By Nikki Finke
[05/19/99]

Column
The Rall World
Ted Rall, the cartoonist laureate of bitterness, talks about class, baby boomers, "soft liberals" and why editorial cartoons really, really suck.
By James Poniewozik
[05/17/99]

Alt
Pundits in the limelight
Political consultants make for better copy than the candidates; one writer's Brontë-inspired hell; enough with the "enough with 'Star Wars'" stories!
By Jenn Shreve
[05/14/99]

Column
The hooker with a heart of gold
USA Today has gotten flak for selling ads on its front page -- but at least its money-grubbing is right out there for all to see.
By James Poniewozik
[05/13/99]

Brand X
The woman in the gray flannel Mao jacket
After two months as an ad woman, Ruth Shalit surveys the historic depiction of her profession and decides she'd rather be a late-capitalist soul-snatcher than a cringing drunk or a thieving ho'.
By Ruth Shalit
[05/11/99]

Complete archives for Media

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I know you're busy people -- what with the businesses to run, the employees to surveil, the FBI disrupting your children's weddings and so forth. But have you at least considered a third-party run for president? You there! Reading "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"! Have you no sense of civic duty?

You may never see a better opportunity. Since the impeachment drama ended, leaving a news vacuum for a long-running story, the political media has confronted the possibility that the designated substitute -- the 2000 primaries -- may be over months before they technically begin. Amid the ensuing ennui, which will only get worse, any half-interesting freelance loon will receive a grateful groundswell of attention that will make Colin Powell's near acclamation in 1996 look like a public stoning. Your only limits are your bank account and your willingness to go off your medication!

James Poniewozik's column appears in Media, every Monday and Thursday + Biography + Archives

Consider what the 2000 race promised: two parties, two primaries, perhaps a dozen and a half competitors leading fractious mini-armies to a fin de siècle Ragnarok of culture war and self-interest. The Republican primary would be a loopy family drama with telegenic mouthpieces bloodying one another while God chose from among his several closest personal friends. On the Democratic side, there were rumors that actual Democrats might participate. But with 18 months to go in the it's-not-a-campaign-yet, we're already at an impasse. The Republican leadership is short-circuiting the primaries by lining up behind George W. Bush; the contest between Bill Bradley and Al Gore is being propelled on the faintest of journalistic hopes; even Steve Forbes has been reduced to the comical role of the humble preacher's boy from Bedminster.

And the press's restlessness is becoming apparent. As evidenced in the Politics 2000 coverage of the past couple of weeks, its principal coping mechanisms are breaking down into three categories:

Next page | Bill! Help! Save us from an all-Al Gore universe!