It's what I've known all along, that newspapers report presidential elections like horse races, reporting more on the process (and they're leaning into first turn and Obama's got the inside rail, Clinton laying on the whip, and McCain is just sitting pretty...)than on the candidates and their issues. It's more a report on who has the most points (states and delegates) and we're supposed to vote based on this heap of horse dung. Vote for the winner, not vote and get a winner.
Anyway, like I said, political coverage is something I've always known about, and it's such a familiar feeling. More and more I keep feeling my age, feeling like I've pretty much seen it all, and it reminds me of sitting in a Catholic Church a few years ago, just hoping, hoping against hope that Something would just come down and fill me with a little peace. And it was all the same as I remember. The Catholic Church treats its congregation like its made up of little children, and people who can't think for themselves, who need to be told what, and I just don't get a darn thing out of it. And that's pretty much what I get when I pick up a newspaper or log on to a mainstream Web site.
And so, what the heck is an intelligent, responsible person supposed to do? It's so easy to give up. It just gets harder and harder to get the truth out of anyone anymore. And there's just too much information. Right now, Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone is the only political writer I trust, and that's because he just paints the candidates, the press, and the process as I imagine it all, in all their sleaziness with their deceit and pitiful human foibles oozing to the surface. And don't that just nail my demo. I can hear my youngest right now--Dad, who reads this stuff?
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