The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.
Shock & awe = shuck & jive?
: Sorry. We couldn’t resist the headline.
Great quote on the FoxNews crawl just now regarding shock and awe and whether we’ve seen it yet — if you have to ask, then it isn’t shock and awe, said the Pentagon.
: And, yes, there is something unseemly about the air of disappointment I hear in news reports about the lack of shock and awe. We’ll do well to accomplish this without either.
Sounds a bit like WWI thinking if you ask me. Before every battle there was an intense bombardment the likes of which humanity had never before seen. The effect? The opposing side simple dug their trenches all the deeper.
The poor media . . . today in the same breath they were describing the greatest psychological warfare assault in history, they voiced puzzlement that the Pentagon isn’t following the script. Perhaps they don’t understand they’re part of the assault.
Or as one of the architects of the “shock and awe” philosophy said tonight . . . it works best when even DESCRIBING it causes the enemy’s bowels to loosen. You don’t even need to DO it.
Shock and obfuscate?
Awww and shucks?