Anger Is The New Black

Anger is the new black. I wanna trademark the phrase. My mind's eye sees a brisk trade in T-shirts and coffee mugs. Alas and alack, it is not to be. Money's too tight to mention. I'll settle for repeating it. A lot.

Anger is the new black. I coined the phrase commenting on the incomparable Digby's post here. She was talking about CNN's Jack Cafferty. On Thursday, apparently having mixed his meds, Cafferty had a spectacular xenophobic conniption. Digby dissects the whole sordid incident and the "new" style MSM champion. So I won't bother. She kicks her post off thusly:

I can't tell you how sick I already am of the latest incarnation of the angry, white male "star" as personified by Dobbs, Cafferty and lately (god help us) Matthews.

Hear, hear. It's the rare media types like Olbermann and Stewart who use their platform to rail against injustice, hypocrisy and corruption. Dobbs, Matthews and the other bargain basement Howard Beale's have a different intent. As alpha males competing to lead the MSM's howler monkey troop, they seek the shortest path to tap into our collective zeitgeist. Their very livelihood depends on it.

In Cafferty's case, it's his inconsistency I found maddening. Sure, his rants were often on target but his misses were absolutely excruciating. Even on a good day, Cafferty veered dangerously close to just every other howler monkey in the troop. With this whole lotta shrieking going on, it can be impossible to hear a specific simian above the din. When you can, it's frequently not good news. Since his rabid xenophobic meltdown Cafferty can howl all he wants. I'm not listening. He's dead to me.

Anger is the new black. We live in angry times. We live in desperate times. The average Joe yearns for someone to blame for this mess -- so long it the "accountability trail" doesn't lead back to them. They prefer to pretend they bear no responsibility for electing amoral officials, cheering for an unjust disastrous war or their reckless personal behavior.

MSM howler monkeys hope to cash in on this antipathy. They'd be well advised to keep their paws inside their cage.

AF