The Wages of Fame

Scott McClellan's seemingly sudden personal apotheosis has inspired the question "why didn't he speak out sooner?" The common wisdom apparently is that he must have known that he was serving malicious masters and willfully gave public voice to their lies. But anyone who ever worked in Hollywood and has been in on some of the drivel that gets greenlighted by top studio executives and made for astronomical amounts of money understands the process. Group think is an amazing thing. It leads otherwise intelligent people of taste to being fooled into believing that chicken poop is chicken salad, or at least chicken poop salad. It reminds me of the joke about a group of friends on a hunting trip. None want to cook, so they agree that they'll draw straws, and the loser will cook until someone complains. The man who draws the short straw is a terrible cook, but just to make sure on the first night he goes out and finds a cow pie, bakes it up and serves it to the others when they come back to camp. "This tastes like s***," one of the hunters exclaims. "Good though!"