Wall Street Journal R.I.P.

Rupert got what he wanted, and what no one else in the thinking world wanted or should ever have wanted, if they care about minor things like truth, quality of life, ethics or the freedom of the press.

The Wall Street Journal is now owned by the scruple-free vulgarian from that former penal colony on the other side of the Equator. And the nation has lost one of its few remaining respectable broadsheets. You know, the ones that actually practice journalism and wonder what that word means and/or should stand for. Anyone who believes that Murdoch will stand by his pledge to protect the editorial freedom of the Journal staff is the rankest of fools; nine months from now, the paper will be a laughable shell of itself and be peopled with cave-dwelling amoralists culled from Murdoch's other rags-in-newspapers'-clothing outfits around the world.

Not a tear should be shed for the worthless Bancroft family that all-too-easily talked itself into the sale. Weak-kneed, weak-willing, mealy-mouthed, greedy, spoiled little third- and four-generation do-and-know-nothing failures who are incapable or unwilling to understand things like "legacy," "standards," "public trust," "greater good" and "heritage." May each and every one of them lose their windfalls in one fell swoop on a horse or a bender or an investment, and be lowered to hawking copies of the New York Post at street corners.

As for Rupert, I guess I should be angriest at him. But what do you do with a fellow who needs to destroy an information and cultural institution like the Journal, which contributes to every life by its very history and existence, jsut so he can use its pages to line the sides of the gold-plated private toilet he calls a media empire, and, eventually, the sides of his platinum, bejeweled coffin.

It's an unfortunate fact the one of the pillars of our republic, Freedom of the Press, has been and is left to the self-serving supervision of power-mongering, remorseless old men who care nothing for the public or country, but only for their accumulation of power and riches. Murdoch, Zuckerman, Hearst, Pulitzer, McCormick, etc. All the same guy.