Pooh-poohing populist discontent.

Like any self-respecting neurotic, I hate to fly. To get through it, I mainline trash magazines from take-off to landing. So imagine my surprise when - at 30,000 feet - I looked at the table of contents of Glamour to discover the following article: "Sweatshops: Fashion's Dirty Little Secret."

Although much of the article amounted to a puff piece about how companies like Liz Claiborne and the Gap have cleaned up their act and no longer rely on child labor, the story nonetheless urged its readers to look for the union label. It even showcased polls demonstrating that consumers would boycott companies suspected of using sweatshops.

Now, I can't imagine George Will reading Glamour, but he did seem especially agitated over this kind of journalism, which suggests that "it is the job of the corporation to be a mini-welfare state," as he said on This Week With David Brinkley. Will is sick of all this recent prattling about the socially responsible corporation, the export of jobs abroad, and worker insecurity. Why, statistics just don't support the notion that workers should be anxious at all, Will pleaded. Most laid-off workers find jobs at the same or better pay than what they had before, he insisted. "The trajectory of the last week, the last month, the last 200 years, is this," and then we saw his hand zooming up as if it were an L-1011. "Everyone should relax: It's going up."

Will aimed his barbs at The New York Times, which ran a seven-part, front-page, blockbuster series on downsizing in America. "The elite press has so magnified this issue," he puffed. If people are insecure, asked Will, why do 80 percent of them respond positively to the pollster's question, "Are you happy?" David Brinkley had the answer. "What we're saying is that people are having a terrible time, and they love it," he chuckled.

The Times series, by the way, showed that since 1979, 18.7 million white-collar jobs have been lost. Yes, new jobs have been created, "but more often than not, people who lose a full-time job get a new one that pays less than the old or is only part-time."

Blue-collar workers, of course, have really been screwed, but even among college-educated workers over fifty, the layoff rate has doubled from the 1980s to the 1990s. Not to worry. Just relax and enjoy yourselves.

This Week did an entire show on the GM strike, but only as a means of further pooh-poohing populist discontent. The show linked the strike to Buchanan's success in tapping into resentment about corporate avarice, trashing the unions and job insecurity all at the same time.

Reporter Bob Jamieson set the strike piece up by saying it was over only 300 jobs, and all GM wanted was "the flexibility to buy its parts from the most competitive bidder." The one expert we got to hear from was corporate apologist and neocon windbag Robert Samuelson, who pronounced workers' insecurities "exaggerated." It's simply a case of "politicians appealing to people's insecurities and anxieties as they usually do during a campaign," Samuelson said. See, this is a psychological problem, not an economic one. Your place of employment is downsizing? Think positive!

Jamieson ended his intro like this: "The impact of strikes - like the one at GM - is certain to make Americans less secure."

The first guest was the president of the National Association of Manufacturers, brought in to set the correct tone for the proceedings. Basically, downsizing is a myth, he said, blown out of proportion by fringe elements. And he couldn't imagine why the UAW would produce this kind of "discord" over such a silly issue. He repeatedly used the word "miracle" to describe the American economy, and gushed: "We've created twice as many jobs as we've lost! We created five times as many jobs as they have in Europe! Outsourcing won't cost jobs! Even wages are better than what people think." (Again, it's all in your head.)

The next guest was Gerald McEntee, the president of AFSCME, who did get to remind viewers that GM made $7 billion in profits last year. Boy, this set Donaldson off - he's the liberal, remember. He recalled that when U.S. Air was losing billions, its workers "fought tenaciously against contributing anything" to help it survive. Those myopic, greedy unions.

Now, if Sam had chosen United Airlines to discuss, he would have confronted a different story. Middle-management workers bought a stake in the airline in the 1980s, enduring major pay cuts in exchange for a commitment to no layoffs. But that's not the story the pundits chose to tell.

The final guest - in case you didn't get it that workers should be demonized - was, of course, Pat Buchanan.

Over on The McLaughlin Group, our estimable host was too busy praising Dole as "the action candidate" and suggesting that Elizabeth Dole give an interview to Cosmopolitan about Bob's sexual acrobatics (yuck!) to discuss anything as quotidian as a strike.

I don't know about Cosmopolitan, but when Glamour magazine - which identifies leg waxing as the triumph of Western civilization - does better on issues of corporate responsibility than ABC News or PBS, I really think it's time for the pundits to hang it up.