Talking heads: the new Tower of Babble

Remember the biblical fairy tale about the Tower of Babel? These days we are building a real tower, a Tower of Babble.

Consider the myriad talking heads of the network TV talk shows and the excess of pundits in the print media and on cable network blogs. As in clog.

They are all speaking the Mother Tongue, but en masse they’re talking gibberish. Why? Because the world has become so complicated that these guys and gals can’t, in almost the time you can say, “Rush Limbaugh is an idiot,� solve the country’s economic problems.

Start with the proposals by the already-harried and harassed, well-meaning president to rescue the embattled American Empire.

It’s so complicated that no one, save probably that old wise guy, Solomon, could come up with all the details in a day or two. Or a week, not even in a month.

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So pity President Obama’s embattled Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner. He was pilloried last week by wizards of the U.S. Senate because he couldn’t spit out more details of his plan to jump-start the economy.

“You want us to approve this plan, spending billions of taxpayers dollars, and you can’t give us all the details of how you are going to do it?� railed one of the dyspeptic solons.

I’d be mighty distrustful of that Treasury boss if he could come up with all the details on such short notice.

Back up a few months when then-Treasury Secretary Paulson presented to the Congress — and an astonished nation — a plan to pull the nation out of what seems certain to become a depression — with a three-page plan. Three pages!

He was lambasted, but even my 11-year-old grandson could have opined that this was not only gibberish, but insulting.

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In both instances, the babbling pundits went to work. Jon Stewart, the honcho of the fake news program, “The Daily Show,� collected videos and showed clips of all the TV experts spouting practically the same words: “No details,� “No details,� “No details.�

Jim Lehrer’s News Hour on PBS, which is a bit more sophisticated than most of the others, calls in “experts� from some of the unbelievable number of organizations that have taken root in Washington with fancy names that sound like they have the best brains in the country. Most of these men and women had been in government or the military and can’t find or don’t want a productive job when their terms expire, so they join or form organizations to overanalyze world events.

Lehrer’s show has been a favorite of mine for years, but now I’m getting weary of the over-long segments when one of Jim’s staff questions the guests, gets the answer and then bores in and repeats the question in a slightly different way — a few words changed or repositioned — and I fall asleep.

 The next day the print columnists take up their cudgels and go to work with the same unanswerable questions. But like their talking brothers and sisters, they only carry another hod of bricks up the ladder to build ever higher the Tower of Babble.

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Someone should rap these fake prognosticators on their hands with a ruler: “You were wrong, again. If you can’t get it right, get off the air, out of the magazine, or the newspaper, the Internet and do something else.�

Last week some of the most visible analysts in the country were asked, “Why didn’t they warn us that the economy was tanking?� Not one I saw admitted that maybe he was wrong and should have seen what was coming and stepped in and sounded the alarm.

Was it stupidity, arrogance or greed? Or all of the above?

Even the saintly Alan Greenspan, whose words Wall Street hung on like gospel, wouldn’t make even a small concession that he should have heard the first leak in the hull of our sinking ship of state.

I suggest (What, didn’t you think I wasn’t going to come up with the real solution? Don’t touch that dial.) most of the commentators join their fellow citizens in manufacturing, finance, chain stores, et al, who lost their jobs and demand to be laid off. You heard me, get off the air, out of sight, pick up a hammer and help repair bridges, roads, build schools, railroad cars, whatever we need.

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Now what do we do with the ensuing empty time on TV? Fill it with reruns of cowboy movies that we all loved in years past. Our Western heroes didn’t waste time analyzing or consulting. You didn’t smile when you dissed Clint Eastwood.

When Tom Mix, Buck Jones, John Wayne and Clint rode the range, life was black and white. The rustlers and bank robbers wore black hats and the shy heroes rode into the sunset proudly wearing their white Stetsons. (Made in Danbury.)

No need to analyze the situation, they just trotted off without looking back.

Freelance writer Barnett Laschever, the curmudgeon of Goshen, is available for consulting and analytical work, for a price. He’s the author of five children’s books and co-author of “Connecticut, An Explorer’s Guide.�