Bring It On! Election 2008

Pundits are idiots. I’ve spent a lot of time on blogs, opining, then vigorously defending said opine, and never have I assumed that just because I said something, it must be so. I take my readers seriously. They are investing time in our argument, and even if they piss me off to the point I have to step away for a moment and regroup, the real reason we’re here, the exchange of ideas and information, is being served. Some bloggers aspire to be pundits. They aren’t there to argue, they are there to inform that their weighty opinion matters, and that of their reader does not. Really? Honey, it y’all were all that, you’d have jobs as analysts.

These days, our news media loves pundits. In the fast slide from fact based journalism to political columnist, we suffer through media dictatorship. Our information is filtered through somebody else’s parameters, blared like so much propaganda, and leaves the average intelligent adult nonplussed.

Take Iowa and New Hampshire, for example. At the conclusion of the Iowa caucus, Obama sported a 10 point lead. He’s off to a good start. His campaign strategy on the ground worked in Iowa. Clinton’s did not. Edwards did well, considering he is less well funded. These are the facts.

Instead we hear Clinton is one step from out. Obama is the new inevitable winner. The race is now between Edwards and Obama. Obama can’t lose in NH. Blah, blah, blah, BS-cakes.

Yesterday in NH, Clinton won by 3 points. People in that state responded better to Clinton’s campaign. They also responded well to Obama’s, but in slightly smaller numbers. Edwards came off with a third place, and needs to do well in Nevada and South Carolina to keep his campaign on track. Somebody in NH had heard of Kucinich. These are also the facts.

Instead we get that Clinton’s victory is a stunner. That her campaign is no longer dead. That Obama is on the hot seat and Edwards is dead. That, well, we don’t know a damn thing, but when has that stopped us from telling you what we think you should think?

The heart of the matter is drive and money. Facts are stubborn little buggers, they take time and patience to procure. They require ability; you have to want to dig them out. Espousing an educated guess, or worse, just what you think will sell a paper, requires little ability and even less character. Yet, are the papers selling? Uh, no. What they offer is readily available on blogs, with the added bonus of human interaction and argument, something Americans love.

This country was founded on an argument, and we’ve argued ever since. We believe that it’s the only way to rip off the fluff and find the prize: truth. We like truth. From childhood we’ve believed it should be self-evident. This is so ingrained in our national ideal of what it is to be American, that we are having a hard time collectively, watching our national psyche tarnish on the international stage. In our gut, we crave shining beacon status.

This is one reason why newspapers are failing. The time for filling space with speculation and expecting people to believe it is over. Thanks to blogs, we all have our places where we can go and read the ridiculous, the inspiring, and the original thoughts of our peers. We know this medium well; we tap it daily. We don’t need punditocracy disguised as journalism.

We need facts. More importantly, we need a media infrastructure that supports, protects and holds high expectation for factual journalistic endeavor. We need tough questions and good editing. They need to stop sucking the profit pipe to the point that the whole reason for the industry is bastardized.

There are 48 states to go; you’d never know it, based on what you read today. That, my friends, is a very sad fact.

Politics is a blood sport. Candidates eat each other like famished drunks feeding on pretzels at an open bar. They pontificate, obfuscate, and speechify until we bend to their evil will or wander off in search of something meatier and more substantive - Britney’s nervous breakdown perhaps.

We can already see America’s short attention span at work. All most of us remember from the campaign pre-season are mental images of the Huckster playing bass with some kick-ass evangelical death metal band and Rudy taking a call from his wife mid-press conference. Lou Dobbs is positively apoplectic that no one seems to be the least upset that brown hordes yearning to be employed are kicking down America’s doors and stealing jobs from American grape pickers.

Recent polling suggests that The Big Issue^TM for this primary season - the twin Wars of Error - has flown out to the far edges of our national radar screen. Aside from Rudy chanting his political birth date - 9/11 - there’s nary a reminder that the country is at war or why. War coverage has gone the way of space launches - interesting the first few times, but finally dropping into the background. You’re vaguely aware of something going on, but couldn’t remember a single astronaut’s name if you were answering the last question on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

I’m sure the wars will be back. There’s another year before the election and The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight will monumentally and publicly screw the pooch again before then. However, it’s a shame we seem to be taking our eye off the ball now. The surge is mid-stream and the administration can blather about its success without fear that anyone will point out that “success” in this case means staying in that kabob-pocked rat hole indefinitely.

The net result of this inattention is that a rotten apple administration will be completely released from any responsibility for their nut case actions. There will be no impeachment. The dems will open countless investigations, but none of them will result in anything more than limp-wristed hand slaps to a President wearing hockey gloves.

One could argue that what’s done is done, but they’d be dangerously wrong. From stacking federal courts to wallpapering every government agency with the worst policies ever, his misdeeds and incompetence will stick to us for years.

None of the weasels running for Leader of the Free World^TM want to mention that because it would lock them into actually fixing things when they settle into the padded chair in the Oval Office. But the truly sad part is that we’ll have our election and then doze off in front of an episode of Dancing With the Stars.

That way, we’ll all share the blame and be collectively let off the hook. Just like the Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight.

There are countless reasons why I wouldn’t vote for Mike Huckabee. At the same time, I find myself in the strange position to admire the fact that he, more than his manipulative Republican predecessors, is a candidate committed to his evangelical beliefs and the followers who share them. Let me be clear…my admiration is for the apparent sincerity of the individual; not for the beliefs he and his minions hold. Conversely, my disdain is for those who have created the very dynamic they suddenly fear.

In fact, an interesting thing is happening in the GOP. The powers that be…those crafty individuals (think Karl Rove) who long ago sought to recruit people of faith with a mix of pious pandering, phobic platitudes, and pyrrhic promises…now find themselves between a rock and a hard place. Suddenly, the beast of burden that carried them to their exalted victory in 2000 (their culminating moment of presumed political dominance) has become the dangerous dragon that establishment Republican elitists are rampantly racing to slay.

If one removes the veil of religious rhetoric under which the GOP elite has traveled to reach their pinnacle of power, one would actually find they worship little more than power and the profit it brings. Like panoply on a pig, they have willingly donned the dressings of dogma and whispered sweet nothings in the ears of those who honor the ultimate populist…Jesus Christ.

Time and again, these skillful strategists took umbrage at the slightest hint of secular and scientific sensibility in order to ingratiate themselves to the faithful. If it wasn’t prayer in school or religious symbols in public places or the war on Christmas or a science curriculum that includes intelligent design or research utilizing embryos already scheduled for destruction, it was penalizing a network for showing a split second of Janet Jackson’s breast at the Super Bowl or the need to deny the medical evidence in the Terri Schiavo case or promoting abstinence to combat AIDS and teen pregnancy or the ever popular railing against the militant homosexual agenda bent on destroying the family and the sanctity of marriage.

When George Bush sold compassionate conservatism and the restoration of “honor” to the White House as a moral imperative wrapped in religiosity, these elitist Republicans embraced the guise with the fervor of a freshman fraternity pledge. They did so because Bill Clinton provided the opportunity to adopt their “soul saving” straw man strategy and it served their purposes at that particular juncture.

Like most zealots, they rode their hallowed horse into the ground until it culminated in the wholesale rejection of their extremist ideology in 2006…and that now leads them to believe their sullied steed cannot cross the finish line first in 2008. In truth, they actually believe it must be prevented from running the race and they desperately want it quietly, quickly, and convincingly retired.

Unfortunately, the real believers…those individuals that have been so callously manipulated…now see a truly cathartic champion in Mike Huckabee and an opportunity to flesh out the disingenuous interlopers who simply sought to maintain their insular domain.

Like any charade, the hoodwinked eventually awaken to exact their revenge on the offending individual or entity. Like most charlatans, the offenders swiftly and summarily jump ship and expose their sinister and singular self-serving identities the moment their kingdom appears set to crumble. Unable to hold their avarice at bay, their true nature spills from their mouths like water from a Louisiana levee.

Truth be told, the Mike Huckabee phenomenon is the love child of an ill-conceived marriage…one that sought to attach the prurient pursuit of power and profit to puritanical piety. Mike Huckabee simply saw an opportunity and he took it…much to the chagrin of the establishment elites…and much to the delight of the unrequited.

It now appears that the obtuse overlords who have made a career of championing conventional marriage have two problems. One, their own marriage of convenience is about to disintegrate…and two, they were foolish enough to produce an offspring that is now older and wiser and fully capable of unrestrained rebellion.

Spiteful as it may be, I’m happy to state, “Let the nasty divorce begin”.

Cross-posted at Thought Theater

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

Of all the empty-issues in the presidential campaign, perhaps one of the emptiest is Mitt’s Mormonism. Like most of Moroni’s Minions, he wears his religion on his sleeve. That’s no different than Huckleberry the Hounded spouting off about how pious he is in his equally odd beliefs. It seems to me that thinking the world is 10,000 years old isn’t any loonier than migrating a barren salt bed that’s not fit for much other than world speed-record attempts. Muslims believe pork chops will send them to hell and snake handlers think that if they only believe enough, they’ll survive bites from poisonous copperheads - a belief mostly shared by those who haven’t had their faith tested yet. Catholics think the snake handlers are crazy, but the Mighty Miter thinks it’s OK to hide child molesters. Shakers were celibate, which isn’t exactly a growth position sect-wise. So, go figure.

All belief systems have crazy ideas, atheists included. All that proves is that if God created us, he really needs a better quality control system and if he didn’t, Darwin was right and we’ve evolved from a shallow gene pool with lots of broken DNA. How else would you describe a world that requires chipmunks?

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