Fair and balanced
Bad news.  I'm probably a hypocrite.

It's quite a disheartening realization.  It came to me as I was watching some of the coverage of the DNC in Boston.  The coverage is always more interesting than the floor show.

Ted Koppel was interviewing Jon Stewart (whose job it is to cover the coverage, which is always funny).  Once I got past the obvious fact that Mr. Stewart reads this blog (Hi, Jon!) and totally ripped off some of the stuff I've posted on here regarding the insipid banality of crosstalk-TV-as-analysis, I actually processed what he was saying.  He likened the DNC (and the general anachronism of conventions in general) to a corporate "product rollout".  To which I replied, "Yeah, no shit."

And yes, I realize he can't hear me through the TV screen.

But then I got to thinking about the August RNC where they are going to roll out a product that was already set as soon as the 2000 election was finished.  So we're going to have to sit through four nights of reruns so they can "brand" something that's already branded.  It thought about President Bush up there making his speech, eyes narrowed to slits, lips pursed in that inimitible way, laying out and justifying plans for my country that I disagree with close to 75-80% of the time and I caught myself thinking "Jesus, that guy bugs me."

This is where the hypocrite parts comes in.  It's a struggle--an honest, everyday, life-sapping struggle--to not fall into the trap of crosstalk-inclined partisanship.  I find myself as I walk around in everyday life thinking very dark thoughts about the president, but so far I think I've been able to keep the real poisonous impulses in check as I write this thing (or at least mask them with some humor).  I credit my teachers (especially grad school) with giving me some (judge for yourself whether it's successful or not) ability to write from a somewhat detached, critical place.  Of course I also credit them with crushing my spirit and driving me screaming out of academics.  So we'll call it a wash.

Then I thought about the DNC and the RNC together and decided: that's the point.  That was why Al Sharpton got to speak.  In this weeks' Newsweek, they claim that in 1992 (my first vote) 66% of the country were undecided around convention time.  This year that number is more like 17%.  At least that's what the bold-type caption said under a picture of Kerry and Edwards.  I don't really read articles.  I read Newsweek for the pictures.

This is where I should make some kind of high-falutin' poli-sci observation about the "party system perpetuating itself" and the link between national politics and the complicity of mass media, but I've bored myself already just thinking about it.

But if the point is to get you to close your mind to other possibilities, I think I understand some of the appeal of Ralph Nader and not just to disaffected liberals.

Except he's, you know, crazy.

 
This post on the Narcissus Scale: 8.6

 
Pops

- posted by Pops @ 11:40 AM