"The big news orgs begin to pick up the story of the Iowa farmer family snubbed by the Rudy campaign. More to come?"

-- Greg Sargent

Not much going on with Rudy being rude, but I am sure that a democratic candidate WILL get another haircut sometime soon such that our oh so serious pundits can discuss it for several weeks. How will we ever seek substance with the bimbos (male and female) of the pundit press? Answer: We won't, and that's the plan.

By the time the campaign goes front and center with the public - early next year - perhaps all this nonsense will have become too trite and old-news to still be important. Of course, this is the electronic media we're talking about, the ones with attention spans of almost nothing who seem at the same time capable of dragging an irrelevant story along for what seems to be an eternity. Maybe we'll be fortunate enough for Paris Hilton to have again done something profoundly stupid enough to get their attention.

Yeah, Hitler. Now how do you feel girly-man?

Look! Over here, voters: Shiny keys, jingle jingle jingle.

*snicker* I'm so glad I don't have a TV connection anymore.

By the time the campaign goes front and center with the public - early next year - perhaps all this nonsense will have become too trite and old-news to still be important.

They're only getting started. See the Daily Howler's "War on Gore" to see how this will play out. It's sad to say this has all happened before, but it most certainly will happen again.

Ideally, in a democracy with transparent workings, we'd have access to every bit of information we need to make a decently rational decision. Personally, I'm fine with the Sunday-morning chumfight... sensationalism and character assassination date back to Grover Cleveland (and centuries beyond, no doubt). As long as reporters (or bloggers, or video archivers) are transmitting all the data, let the big boys flog their stories about $400 haircuts, fake Southern accents, and mumbled Beach Boys parodies. We live in the age of RSS and aggregators... if you want the real stuff, turn your damn filter on. Why get freaked out by yellow journalism? It's always been here. I don't really consider syndicated columnists and cable TV hosts to have standards to which they must be held, other than disclosure of interests. Let them talk, let them entertain, let them go fuck themselves.

Besides, most of us indulge in armchair psychoanalysis/thinktankery on a regular basis. Keillor and Blumenthal make a lot of hay out of limning the inner workings of W's skull. Greenwald has his aristocratic Beltway media types. Lord knows Salon commenters can take a stray Paglia or Havrilesky quote and map out their complete home life. It's a common human impulse to assign anecdotes to personality traits.

Would that we were all perfect abriters of political candidates' credentials. But as far as presidential candidates go, we don't seem to be hurting for a detailed history (e.g. Giuliani & Romney's stances re: abortion). In the meantime (and I say this with as little defeatism as possible): enjoy the circus! Fault the media for engaging in kingmaking, but not for getting moony over minutiae.

The news media doesn't think its important unless the Drudge Report thinks its important.

John Edwards' $400 girly man haircut = important.

Fruity Rudy snubbing Iowa farmers = not important.

Nancy Pelosi flying to Syria = undermining the President = important.

President Bush sending Alberto Gonzales and Andy Card to AG's hospital beside to circumvent Deputy AG = not really an attempt to justify their lawbreaking = not important.

Besides, if Howie Kurtz and David Broder think $400 haircuts are more important than illegal warrantless spying on Americans then who are we to argue? ABC and CBS don't even think Comey's testimony was important enough to cover.

It's their choice to piss away their credibility and it's our choice to make fun of them.

Good job, Tom Tomorrow. You're comics aren't even parodies anymore. They mirror the reality of the state of our media.

They should be embarrassed.