three cheers for the red, white, and blue

How is Newsweek magazine like the coverage of the Olympics? Let me count the ways. It’s all about America, America, America. All the time. Nobody else matters. Ever. And then they wonder why everyone hates us. (Hint: because we don’t care whether or not anyone else exists. Yes, we’re that self-involved.)

Eat the Press is on Newsweek’s case, though, and good for them. Here are the four covers:

Here is Newsweek’s lame, lame, lame explanation of why Tony Blair isn’t good enough to grace the cover of the American edition of the magazine:

Newsweek spokeswoman Jan Angilella pointed out that Newsweek addresses issues of domestic and international importance, and noted that here, the difference was split: “Tony Blair is an international figure and he’s an international story. Hence we put him on the cover of all of our overseas issues.”

Oh, I see now. International issues are only of interest to international readers. Because America ends at the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific and on the borders with Canada and Mexico. We are not interested in anyone or anything “out there.” Right.

Eat the Press reminds us why it is a bad idea to choose to be so isolated from the rest of the world.

However, when every edition of Newsweek ’round the world is different from the one at home, it’s worth at least wondering why. It may not be be a desexualized celebrity photographer supplanting a scary growing jihad in Afghanistan, but still, it sets the U.S. apart from the rest of the world and draws a distinction between U.S. readers and their growing counterparts.

I’ll say.

And what’s all this about the Olympics? Well, once upon a time, before the era of “Up Close and Personal” gauzy biopics of American athletes and their triumphant overcoming of unbelievable obstacles just to be able to afford ice skates or whatever, coverage of the Olympics was what you think sports coverage ought to be: in other words, if they were showing, say, the long jump, they would cover the entire event, from start to finish, sequentially. Even if no American was in the race.

Olympics coverage was not an orgy of jingoism. Can you imagine that? No, I didn’t think so. Because we are all participating in an orgy of the same kind of jingoism every day that we fail to inform ourselves about our place in the world of nations.