Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! - Jesse Ventura [97]
I understand that career politicians write books prior to running for president. Books are used to help catapult yourself into the White House. I had no intention of going for anything like that at the time. I’ve always stuck to the belief that before you look for another job, you finish the one you were voted in to do. Well, as I write this Barack Obama is being hailed as the Democratic Party’s new champion for 2008. He’s written a new book, but do you see any public outcry about it? Yet I was chastised by the media for writing a book about my beliefs and what I felt and how I got to where I was—much the same as Obama’s book, I’m sure. My question is, why was I held to such a different standard?
The reality is, the media jump at personality more than they do substance. They don’t judge you for what you are attempting to accomplish, they simply want to dissect your personality. And I have a volatile personality. So I’m easy pickings for them.
TERRY: Why did the Minnesota media come to hate Jesse so much? Minnesota has a tendency, if one of their own goes beyond a certain scope, to rip him to shreds. They did it to Prince, and to a football player who got involved with drugs. If you don’t walk around really humble and hang your head, once you reach a certain stature, you will get creamed. That was one aspect of it.
The second aspect was, I think, that most of the media already take a side. They are either for the Democrats or the Republicans, and there is no room for anybody else. They want to keep their connections good, because that’s how they make their living. If they start getting behind an independent like Jesse, who they already know is not going to make a life out of politics, this puts their careers in jeopardy.
Besides, people are more interested in reading sensationalistic “bad stuff” than “good stuff.” So the more they can dredge up, even if it’s innuendo or outright lies, well, that’s just more people picking up the paper.
Terry always told me, don’t watch the news and don’t read the papers. Stay focused on what you’re doing, and don’t give a damn. I could do it for a month or even a month and a half, and it worked. But eventually I couldn’t stop myself; I was like a drug addict. In hindsight, if I were to become governor again, I would follow her advice explicitly to the T—for the entire four years.
Headline: VENTURA SERVES UP A WEEK OF THE JACKAL
On Tuesday the governor, an independent (big time) . . . decreed that reporters covering him would have to wear a jackal press badge.
On the front is a full-figure picture of the governor (in a fingerpointing, Jesse- Wants- You pose) and beneath that is the reporter’s name and organization, and the words “Official Jackal.” On the back is a warning that the governor can revoke the credential “for any reason.”
The governor’s office says the new badges are meant to enhance security and accountability.
Many news organizations object, and their reporters refuse to wear the badges. They say what started out as good-natured fun has become demeaning and unprofessional.
—The New York Times, February 25, 2001
I used to get so worked up. One particular journalist with the Minneapolis paper came out with a story about my once having supposedly jumped up onto a topless bar in Montana before being physically removed from the building. The source was an elderly Montana couple who were convinced they’d seen me do this. Well, I’ve only been to Montana three times in my life—twice on a train with my mom traveling to and from the World’s Fair in Seattle when I was a kid, and another time when Terry and I were leaving the Portland wrestling territory and heading home to Minnesota. Yet this story got printed without any fact-checking, and I had to respond to it and deny it.
Another time, I remember reading a comment: “What else can you expect when you have a governor who admits that he never reads?” I never said that. If you counted every book on Kennedy I read