"Scandals" at Election Time
There are days left until the midterm election and what's everyone talking about? Former presidential candidates making bad jokes, pastors buying meth from gay escorts, presidents making bad jokes and inept talk show hosts bashing people with Parkinson disease. Are all these matters of national policy?
It has always amazed me how much people care about little or irrelevant things when it comes to their politicians' and how little they care about the policies those politicians pursue. Somehow it is more important to us to belabor the point about Kerry's bad joke being ok because it was intended as criticism of Bush than it is to wonder what each elected official has in mind about Iraq. And that is one complicated issue, I might add, I don't think it is a matter of 'we should stay' vs 'we should leave'. The issue requires a lot of political discourse. How would we leave? What's the exit strategy? What would we do different if we stayed? But I see no articles on front pages about potential congressmen discussing any of this.
Same story about the inept and ludicrous comments Rush Limbaugh made about Michael J. Fox. Sure, they are outrageous. But why is that the front page story as opposed to interviews with candidates about their views on stem cell research?
Why is nobody talking about the national debt, the budget deficit or about the way government spends its money? How about the Diebold voting machine not-scandal? All of those are plenty alarming real political issues that seem more relevant than jokes or talk show hosts.
Anti gay-marriage pastor caught buying meth from gay escort? Oh the hypocrisy! Do you think that next year the millions of gay people whose lives are affected by the inability to get legally married will have it any easier because we read that story today? Wouldn't it be more relevant to figure out where the candidates stand? Heaven forbid us talk about the issues that are relevant to gay-marriage. No! It is a matter of moral vs. immoral. Period. It is as easy as that. Nobody needs to ask no congressmen what she thinks about it.
Why is nobody asking candidates what they think about the possibility of impeaching the president and other members of his administration? I guess we'd rather watch him making jokes about not being able to find the WMDs.
It has always amazed me how much people care about little or irrelevant things when it comes to their politicians' and how little they care about the policies those politicians pursue. Somehow it is more important to us to belabor the point about Kerry's bad joke being ok because it was intended as criticism of Bush than it is to wonder what each elected official has in mind about Iraq. And that is one complicated issue, I might add, I don't think it is a matter of 'we should stay' vs 'we should leave'. The issue requires a lot of political discourse. How would we leave? What's the exit strategy? What would we do different if we stayed? But I see no articles on front pages about potential congressmen discussing any of this.
Same story about the inept and ludicrous comments Rush Limbaugh made about Michael J. Fox. Sure, they are outrageous. But why is that the front page story as opposed to interviews with candidates about their views on stem cell research?
Why is nobody talking about the national debt, the budget deficit or about the way government spends its money? How about the Diebold voting machine not-scandal? All of those are plenty alarming real political issues that seem more relevant than jokes or talk show hosts.
Anti gay-marriage pastor caught buying meth from gay escort? Oh the hypocrisy! Do you think that next year the millions of gay people whose lives are affected by the inability to get legally married will have it any easier because we read that story today? Wouldn't it be more relevant to figure out where the candidates stand? Heaven forbid us talk about the issues that are relevant to gay-marriage. No! It is a matter of moral vs. immoral. Period. It is as easy as that. Nobody needs to ask no congressmen what she thinks about it.
Why is nobody asking candidates what they think about the possibility of impeaching the president and other members of his administration? I guess we'd rather watch him making jokes about not being able to find the WMDs.
posted by rz at 11:21 AM
2 Comments:
It is much easier worrying about shallow stuff than actually thinking of the real issues, it happens all around the world and not only around elections, people tend to hide behind nonesense because it is more confortable for them to live with themselves... but that is just my opinion
Yeah it is easier and people do that just about everywhere. I'm not so sure it happens so much in the rest of the world, though. I'm too busy to go find some links to studies, but I'm fairly certain that the media behaves very differently in other parts of the world than in the US.
Amy Goodman touches upon this a little bit here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6546453033984487696&q=amy+goodman+media
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