Sore Knees On Forty Second St.

by tristero

In the entertainment biz, there is a technical term to describe this kind of fawning from a mainstream media outlet. It’s called a blow-job.

By far, the most important issue about “Ark Encounter” is not what the park will comprise, but that it is clearly a blatant assault on the Constitution perpetrated by well-known con artists and frauds. That it is also a disgraceful waste of taxpayers’ money which could be put to much better use providing the good children of Kentucky with a better education is another important story. But Ms. Goodstein seems not to care: arguments that this could be a violation of separation of church and state (you think?) are airily dismissed in paragraph 2 and not revisited until the end of a very long, very tedious article filled with such non-facts as the age of the animals on Noah’s Ark.

A-and, did you notice the nearly parenthetical, “I don’t believe in global warming?” Covering as many lunatic right-wing bases as the Times sees fit to print.

Disgraceful.

UPDATE: Several people in comments believe that I missed the subtle mockery of the Times article for the Noah’s Ark scam or that I overreacted. I responded in comments, but I’ll rephrase my responses here.

I did miss the subtle mockery because, if there was subtle mockery in the article, it was far too subtle for my subtlety meter, which is usually pretty acute. As for overreacting, I’d like to point to the first two paragraphs of the Times article:

Facing a rising tide of joblessness, the governor of Kentucky has found one solution: build an ark.

The state has promised generous tax incentives to a group of entrepreneurs who plan to construct a full-size replica of Noah’s ark, load it with animals and actors, and make it the centerpiece of a Bible-based tourist attraction called Ark Encounter.

These days, I suppose that the standards of journalism have become so debased that such a lede could be described as “objective reporting.” I would call it a “press release.”

Again, the major issue of primary importance to the public is that this stunt is clearly unconstitutional. That should have been the lede, as in:

“In a move that many constitutional experts believe is a blatant violation of the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state, Kentucky’s Democratic governor has promised generous tax incentives to a group of creationists in order to build a ‘full-scale’ representation of Noah’s Ark as part of a biblically-themed amusement park.” *

The second most important issue in this story is that it is a complete waste of the Kentucky taxpayers’ money. A third is that the governor is clearly lying and evading – no real jobs will be created and this is clearly a sop to the most vociferous religious nuts in Kentucky

As I see it, the tack that the Times reporter took is closer to flacking than serious reporting. I stand by my original assessment. The Times wasn’t reporting, it was performing what the folks behind Ark Encounter would surely call an “unnatural act.”

*I suppose that lede could be called “subtle mockery” – the hick governor of a hick state turns to such a hick solution for economic woes. But I don’t have that kind of contempt for Kentucky, its government, or its citizens and so I missed the suble mockery.