Republican Primaries ad nauseam
Sorry for the late post. I had to do yoga to be still my yearning desire to strangle someone and rip the TV off the wall. What has me all het up is the never ending coverage of the Republican candidates making outlandish statements about the President and our country and there is no push back. You have “out there” candidates talking to “out there” voters with either gross exaggerations or out right lies, and it is rebroadcast on CNN and MSNBC (I am sure on FOX too but I can stand to watch it although it might help me in a purging diet), with no fact checking.
If we have learned anything we should have learned that he who has the loudest bullhorn wins. Michele Bachmann gives her withdrawal speech and it is full of outright lies about the country and its condition and it stands without any comment from the pundit class about her misrepresentations. Mitt Romney has an ad that says unemployment got worse under Obama and the numbers show the worst unemployment was under Bush and has turned around. Yet this stuff goes on uncorrected.
I guess the media is so use to allowing a Democrat and Republican to argue out the facts (she said/he said) while makeup fixes their perfect hair, that they don’t realize they have become one giant bullhorn for the Republican crazies since the Democrats aren’t in this fight. Here is a thought. Maybe it is time they got in it. They had better start countering this barrage of 19th century economic nonsense or by the time we get to June, it will be the conventional wisdom. We know one thing for sure. While we know the Democrats are spineless, we also know the media is even more spineless fearing they might be called biased for pointing out the truth. Is it any wonder we are in the state we are in?
We are approaching a time that really is a turning point for the country. I don’t know how to break this to you, but there is no middle ground. We are either a country where government has an important role to play in our future, or we are a 19th century economy where it is every man for himself. Each requires radical changes in the way we do things. Trying to find some compromise middle ground just leaves us running in place while the world moves on. The media and the press have a really important role to play here in starting to look at the efficacies of policies instead of their popularity or their politics. Americans are going to have to choose and we need real data about the success or failure of a chosen path. This is not opinion or a he said/she said argument, the numbers are out there, and if the media and the press fail to do due diligence like they did in the run up to the Iraq war, well you know what happened there.
Instead of watching the nauseating coverage of the Iowa caucuses, we went to hear–and see–Glen Campbell at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. I’ve never been a real fan of country music, but Glen Campbell is one exception. He still has the guitar skills and the vocal range that made him famous forty years ago. I’m going to be looking for other distractions as the primaries roll around. Anything to avoid the endless drivel coming out of the mouths of the talking heads–even Rachel Maddow, who is the best of the lot.
Not bad for a guy in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. I would agree and Witchita Lineman takes me back to lonely days at Holloman AFB in the winter. As for the horse race, it is not news. I would love it if they would really talk policies and what we need to do. But another season of Downton Abby is about to start.