Still More Mush from the Wimp

Back in early November, I wrote a short item entitled "More Mush from the Wimp:"

�MORE MUSH FROM THE WIMP�� was the famous headline from the Boston Globe mistakenly left on a story about Jimmy Carter�s views while he was president. Evidently some typesetter who didn't share Carter's enthusiasms slugged it in while waiting for the real head to come down from editorial. It never made it and the story ran with a more accurate if less polite headline.

We've come a long way since then. Now we don't have to wait for the big media to filter the candidates views to us. No. With the blight of online campaign blogging we can cut right through the media filters and reap the spew of the various presidential wannabes right from the source! Why we can read their very thoughts as their very hands type them in to the blog.

Yes, we can get our mush straight from the wimp.

At the time, I was busy excoriating the phoney "candidate blogs" supposedly keyboarded by the candidate himself or someone close to him or her.

Little did I realize that it was only a matter of time before the original Mush Wimp would get in the game. Why? I'd don't know. I shouda seen it coming.

Alas, today, the great era of blogdom came to an end more sure and certain than the implosion of Howard the Duck's online minions. Yes, it is over. Pack it in. Scrub the servers. Move along. Nothing to see here but Mush from the Wimp.

Jimmy Carter, the ex-President who can never seem to learn to just shut up and sit down, has a blog.

Well, he would have a blog if he was certain what to call it. The current title reads, I kid you not:

"Web Logs (Blogs) from West Africa: President Carter's Reflections"

Sigh. I mourn for this once bright and promising medium. I always knew it would survive the hype of Howard the Duck, but how, I ask you, can blogging hope to survive Jimmy Carter's "Reflections?"

Monday, Feb. 2, 2004: Togo

This marked the first full day of our West African journey, made possible by traveling in the "magic carpet" Gulfstream owned by our Trustee Dick Blum. In addition to him, Dr. John Hardman, our son Jeffrey, and Kathy Cade were on the plane. After a midnight refueling stop in Cape Verde, where we were met and briefed by the U.S. Ambassador, we arrived early this morning in Lome, Togo's capital city. We received a warm greeting from the Prime Minister, U.S. Ambassador Gregory Engle, our Carter Center colleagues, and school children bearing flowers. On our drive from the airport to the hotel, we noticed signs that the economy has deteriorated since our last visit ten years ago. In fact, annual per capita income has dropped from $600 to $293.

In fact, how can Togo survive this Carter mission? The last one obviously cost each capita in Togo about $307 in annual income. By the time the Carters leave, if the past is any clue, everybody in Togo will owe the rest of the world ten bucks a year just for living.

Posted by Vanderleun at February 5, 2004 3:40 AM | TrackBack