Observer

The Toast of Trumpland

Of the 338 million people who call the United States home (of whom some 100 million are under threat of deportation, according to the administration of His Royal Flatulence), I suspect that no more than a handful care about the recent turmoil at CBS News. That is to be expected, given that broadcast news appears to be going the way of fax machines, throwaway cameras and human empathy. Still, developments at CBS deserve a moment’s reflection before dirt is poured upon it remains.

The network recently wound up in the possession of somebody named Larry Ellison, an extremely rich person who believes that Donald Trump doesn’t get enough praise for posting racist videos, threatening allies, demolishing the White House and snarling at non-white people. So, after completing his purchase of CBS, Ellison hired a Trump-friendly journalist named Bari Weiss to make sure that the network’s news division regularly deposits a significant amount of saliva upon the presidential ring.

Those of tender years should know that once upon a time, CBS was known as the Tiffany network because of the high quality of its programming and the sparkling reputation of its journalists. CBS can best be described now as the cubic zirconia of American broadcasting.

The trajectory of this once-fabled institution was made clear recently when Weiss summoned her journalistic troops for one of those pep talks that new captains of floundering institutions are inclined to give shortly after ensuring that their personal lifeboat is in working order. Weiss told her underlings that they needed to change how they went about their business. Otherwise, she added, “we’re toast.”

CBS should be so lucky. I have consumed at least one piece of toast every day for the last several months, as opposed to the number of occasions I have consumed CBS News in that time span, which would be zero. A recent visit to a local diner during the breakfast hour suggested that the toast cliché ought to be deployed as an aspiration, not as a threat.

I did notice, incidentally, that my fellow patrons seemed to prefer whole wheat and rye toast over more traditional white toast. I presume this is yet another example of the anti-white discrimination that His Royal Flatulence and his fellow farters on Fox News have been talking about for some years.

Mind you, I am not here to chastise Bari Weiss for using a shop-worn cliché to describe the dire prospects that await CBS News. I think cliches are the greatest thing since sliced bread. When it comes to writing, I take it one cliché at a time before I run it up the flagpole and see if anybody salutes. It is what it is.

I just think Weiss might have made her point more directly had she chosen better food imagery. For example, had she said that CBS News needed to change, otherwise it will be like linguini in squid ink sauce, you can be sure her audience would have better understood their grave circumstances.

I know all about linguini in squid ink sauce. I ordered it once to impress several companions with my sophisticated palate. When the server delivered the meal, it was evident that the bedraggled chef had been multitasking in the kitchen, preparing my pasta while also attempting to replace a cartridge in the restaurant’s printer. I plunged into the inky mess anyway. Tasted like chicken.

In the years since, I have never again spotted linguini in squid ink on a menu. It seems to have disappeared. So if Bari Weiss wanted to get her point across, she should have said that CBS risked becoming linguini in squid ink instead of toast.

Then again, perhaps that would have been a bit too effete. How many anxious television journalists would compare their plight to a plate of linguini in squid ink? Perhaps she should have relied upon a more universally understood food cliché: Chopped liver.

To be thought of as chopped liver is not an aspiration. It is a sign of being ignored or forgotten. That certainly would have fit with the message Weiss delivered to her CBS colleagues. Change, or become chopped liver.

I have to confess, however, that I don’t quite understand why chopped liver is so poorly regarded. I’ve never had it, although a couple of years ago I underwent a liver resection due to an annoying health issue. So I am the proud owner of a chopped liver. But I don’t feel particularly diminished or ignored.

Since my surgery, I have sought out chopped liver on many restaurant menus, just for amusement’s sake. I have yet to see it. Then again, my idea of a fine dining establishment is one that lists Guinness as a dessert, so I may be looking in the wrong places.

Meanwhile, Bari Weiss has announced the hiring of more than a dozen new commentators for CBS News. These opinion spewers include a British-born historian who recently wrote that His Royal Flatulence really outsmarted all those elite snotnoses in Davos, presumably by intentionally confusing Greenland and Iceland, or perhaps by cleverly posing as a demented fool when in reality he is merely a doddering fool.

The goal at CBS, clearly, is to butter up the president. In which case, I suppose the toast cliché suddenly makes sense.