Friday, August 2, 2013

RIP First Amendment

It's rare today to see cogent criticism of government in the corporate press.

And just in case some keener within that culture thinks she might want to tell it like it is, she should ask Drew Johnson how that worked out for him.

Johnson was until a couple of days ago editor of the Chattanooga Times Free-Press. By all accounts he liked his job and was good at it.

Johnson's downfall was the result of an op-ed he wrote after Obama visited a local Amazon warehouse earlier in the week. There Obama unveiled a "grand bargain" jobs strategy that was long on rhetoric and devoid of specifics, but seemed to imply that if we could all just get $11/hr jobs as stock-pickers in mega-warehouses America's middle class will be saved!

Drew is sharp enough to know bullshit when he hears it, and his op-ed the next day was titled "Mr President, take your job plan and shove it." Not only was it concise and drew the reader in, it also had a witty country music reference apropos of a Tennessee newspaper.

Alas, Mr. Johnson is now unemployed.

So much for freedom of speech in the media.

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