23rd Post, 5th Sentence

Here at The Generik Brand, I'm still playing catch-up from my vacation last week, otherwise I would have risen to this challenge from my good friend and colleague Scaramouche much sooner. This particular meme is almost like a chain letter among blogs, and, like Scaramouche, I'm not usually fond of such things; but this I found intriguing. Here are the basics:

1. Go into your archives.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Post the fifth sentence (or closest to it).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same thing.

Okay, fine, my 23rd post wasn't all that long ago, really. I have to go back all the way to January 10th of this year. The post was about right-wing tool commentator Armstrong Williams getting paid taxpayer dollars to shill for the Bush program No Child Left Behind, and following the instructions (especially that part about "or closest to it," as the real fifth sentence read "Anybody?"), the fifth sentence of the post went as follows:

It would appear now that not only must we distrust the official word coming from the White House (which many of us did anyway), but the many and varied pundits who happily toe the administration line are suspect as well.

It's funny -- I was inclined at first to say that nothing has changed since then, but that's not really true, is it? In the interim, the Preznit's numbers have plummeted, the Republican party has been hit by scandals and indictments galore, and both the Democrats and the corporate media seem to have found a few traces of spinal fluid and intestinal fortitude along the way. It makes you wonder how this incident -- along with the other paid-to-shill reporters and the Jim-Jeff Gannon-Guckert flap -- might play out in the national press if they were to occur today. Bush's one-time seeming invincibility and Teflon-like facade has crumbled, and you have to think that he would not be able to get away with such sleaze again.

Which makes it more likely that he won't be able to get away with such sleaze in the future, which is definitely a plus for our side.

Now, the last part of this challenge is to name five more people to carry on the chain letter meme; so I name Shystee, TrogWatch, Da Blog's Da Thang, occasional fish, and Yep, another Goddamned blog. (I would have named Dyerama, but it appears that he's in the process of leaving California for Washington, so I don't want to give him any more to do than he already has on hand.) Have at it.