is that they have a preternatural ignorance of irony.

ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Those watching looked from alien to human, and human to alien, and from alien to human again; but it was already impossible to tell which was which.

What IS the latest stupid media distraction?

Up next, even though the rumors about Obama being a secret muslim have long since been debunked, is there still a 1 in a million chance that it could still be true? More at 11.

I just watched the Dem convention coverage... It's crazy but I think we're actually gonna win this time. Holy crap.

For once, I think we have a stupid distraction that may actually make the USA a better place to live as of Jan 2009. The distraction I'm talking about is John McCain's 7 (or 10) houses.

I mean, does it matter how many houses he owns in terms of his leadership abilities? I don't think so, but on a number of occasions the McCain camp has had to resort to 'but.... he's a war hero', which isn't working. This may be akin to GHW Bush not knowing what a UPC scanner was in 1992. The story's got legs (beats me why), and it's the kind of thing the Obama camp can pound McCain with mercilessly, and it will have a greater long term effect than a stupid, mean-spirited tire gauge.

As for a previous writer, I agree that we may actually win this thing. We may see some change (finally); change that rivals changes we saw under FDR.

Watch for a 10% spread among 'likely' voters for Obama this week. I'm predicting a zenith by Saturday of the polls showing Obama at 52%, McCain at 42%. Those numbers probably won't hold until November, but Obama may carry a lead from now until November, even a slight one, I'd say 47% to 43% right around election day.

PUMAs ???

stupid distraction from what?

Glance at the front page right now. The right wing, the GOP, the official McCain campaign, and William Kristol want you to think not about the incredible thing happening in Denver, but about "PUMAS", a mostly meaningless and peripheral issue that the right loves to milk to create false dissent in the ranks.

Oh wait. I meant the right wing, the GOP, McCain campaign.... and Salon.com

You distract, Salon will run with it. For days. Weeks. Months. The letters column will fill with letters, and so on.

Meanwhile elsewhere, the rest of the world moves on.

Tom Tomorrow gets it, oddly enough the publication he's printed in doesn't.

"What IS the latest stupid media distraction?"

I don't turn on the TV for anything short of Jon Stewart now but I did catch about an hour of ABC news a couple days ago. It was Friday, the day before Obama was set to pick his running mate.

For that full hour of the news, before the network decided something better was worth showing (like sitcoms), I learned nothing about the candidates or the issues, nor national or international events.

I did, however, learn that a man got shot in Brooklyn, another stabbed in Queens, an apartment building was on fire in New Jersey and two tour buses had collided somewhere upstate New York. Also, a bodega was caught selling expired baby food.

With that knowledge I am now confident that I am a better informed, worldly citizen.

Are only marginally less retarded and irritating than the people they mock.

Rott: Thanks for the update. That's the kind of useful info that you never see printed in "The New Yorker."

Cat: Try not to be so easily distracted, Man.

...stupid media distractions.

Several hours of navel lint picking later, the media will decide it's OK after all and go back to McCain's houses or Obama's friend from high schools' cousin's gardener who smoked dope in 1997 or something equally momentous

Why is the yellow star still after my name? I quit Premium!

Thank God I don't have cable television.

Yeah, it's funny, sad, pathetic, and disturbing that our MSM seems obsessed with trivial distractions, but let's be honest, they're fun and entertaining, aren't they? And who's really to blame? Those who report on and discuss the stupid distractions, or those who consume such garbage? Are the media really manipulating and exploiting people, or just giving them what they want? I think any analysis of this problem that reflexively blames the media without also leveling much of the blame at the public at large is too simplistic and doomed to irrelevance.

It's like America's drug policy, in a way. Our policy is heavily skewed towards attacking the supply side, but if we were honest with ourselves we'd admit that the far larger problem and by far the toughest to solve lies on the demand side, right?

McCain forgetting how many homes he has?

Obama's statements and actions with regard to lapel pins?

McCain's 100 years in Iraq statement?

Obama's opting out of public financing?

McCain's past voting record?

Obama's inexperience?

McCain's use of racial slurs without appology?

Obama's Terrorist fist bumb?

Mrs. McCain's Money?

Mrs. Obama's Politics?

There are stupid distractions, and then there are telling bits of information that go to the deeper question of who this politician is. And what anything is has a lot to do with what side of the aisle you're on.

Likewise, if all we can go on is the published platforms of the candidates, well then they are both just top drawer and you might as well flip a coin.

People do want to get into the heads of these people and slips and what is not said are really our only window in.

People do decide what issues speak to them, and ignore the others, and by seeing what scandals do gain traction you can tell alot about what the hidden beliefs of the electorate are.

That's it! That's why I don't watch TV news any longer. Of course, some 70 or 80% of the country hangs on their every non-authoritative word as if it were all so, so I guess we're in poo.

But thanks, Tom Tomorrow, for giving me a little lift to start my day.