Letters to the Editor
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@ Bill_H
"I agree that the media needs to be held accountable on this stuff but the candidates themselves are somewhat to blame as well. If Obama doesn't know how to bowl why show up at a bowling alley? My thought is he did it because he wanted to be seen as a blue collar everyday kind of person. He screwed up and bowled a 37 and got called on it. Should have it been such a big deal? Absolutely not, but it was his idea to go bowling not the press. The candidates are culpable in this insanity as well."
So I guess the hallmark of a great president is COWARDICE, because you aren't going to meet a lot of voters if you avoid place that offer activities that you aren't good at.
Jeez, maybe Obama thought he'de give it shot to show he can have some fun? But no, apparently a person can't do anything in public unless they're "good" at it (WTF that is).
If you can't see this is moronic, then you are obviously a moron. It's because the press treated it as some big controversy that people tend to see it that way. You seem to think that is fair.
Fortunately, the incredibly blatant display by ABC may wake some people up to this BS.
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@SB4609
It's not that these things don't end up motivating votes, it's a chicken and egg question. The media's belief that these are important issues is a self-fufilling prophecy- it makes them important, or at the very least, highly viable distractions to serious voter judgments (not to be confused with 'serious' judgments) over who to vote for and why. And the point I made before is that the epidemic of this silliness in the name of not being elitist or other such garbage has totally taken the wheels off this democracy. George Bush should not have won in 2004- simply should not have. On every conceivable metric, most notably by making the worst and least necessary foreign policy gaffe of United States history, (this is a big thing, fyi), voters should have rejected him in a landslide. They did not and that's a real problem. It means these asinine Republican favoring judgments are becoming paramount in our decision making. And I shouldn't have to say this, but any country that is unable or unwilling to hold its politicians to account is in for diabolical comeuppance.
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I keep trying
to get through an entire David Brooks piece, but I never can do it. Everything Glenn says about his modus operandi (set up straw man; knock down straw man; claim this is what the common man thinks) is true. This has generally been the stock in trade for all of the Times' conservative columnists as far back as I can remember. Kristol does the same thing, as did Safire (granted, with more a bit more panache than either, and with the occasional doses of fabrication and conspiracy theory).
It's interesting to compare them to the Times' liberals, who really work very differently. Kristoff is essentially a muckraker/reporter with opinions. Krugman is a policy wonk/analyst who rarely strays into horse race issues. Bob Herbert tends to build his pieces around a more emotional, human-interest-based core and openly expresses his personal outrage. None pretends that their biases aren't exactly that, whereas Brooks and Kristol try to make it seem as though they aren't even expressing opinions, but are merely reporting factual observations that we all agree with. I'm not quite sure how to characterize Dowd on the liberal-conservative spectrum, given her snarky-pox-on-all-their-houses stock in trade, but either way, I could do without her for the most part.
I guess if you're a conservative trying to make the case that the NY Times is nothing more than a shill for the liberal elites, you couldn't find better evidence than its choice of conservative columnists. Could anyone be worse spokesmen for the conservative cause than these two?
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Re: the update on the polling
I'd like to think that was truly representative, but I wonder if it isn't more representative of what people know they should say in response to such a question? "Oh, no, not me, I'm not interested in gossip"
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Sexism
Listen I've put up with sexism over my years and I don't think the media has been that hard on Hillary. My god her husban Bill calls her a "girl". Now that is sexism! Hillary wants to present herself as tough, and vetted on one hand, then her suupporters whin about sexism on the other hand.
Who's really whining?
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Entertainment as politics/politics as entertainment
There's no question that many Americans are drawn to fluff even when they regret consuming it afterward. It's human nature.
But you have to consider, first, that those who watched hated it---AFTER they watched it. So there is a partial explanation: we're starving for information that will give us hope and let us go back to our lives. Hey, I'll bet that you could show the Food Network to starving Sudanese (or starving anyone) and they would watch it. What does that prove?
Further, consider the factors of promotion, placement, and so on that trick anyone into consuming anything not good for them. This is not different.
I think for the next campaign we should put all the candidates in a big house full of cameras with media stars and watch them get voted out one by one. Every week, we could watch ridiculous staged events including bowling, "debating," dancing, sports, and so on. Do you think we wouldn't watch? _I_ would even watch. What choice would I have?
And would this be substantially different from the current process?
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How irrelevant......
Why in the world are you attacking a commenter (Brooks) rather than ABC, the moderators, or the candidates, for sharing all the failings you ascribe to Brooks? Shooting the handiest messenger is just dumb.
As for the desires of the American people, apparently they are so competent, that a full 56% of them in Feb 2006 thought "freedom of the press" was preferable to government censorship. Give me a break. (journalism.org link)
Lastly, like it or not, the Clinton era taught us that "character" counts for a lot, particularly when it's understood that the future is unknowable and confidence in the President is paramount. We are entitled to know whether we're voting for a black liberationist, or a woman who will lie at the drop of a hat like her husband.
You may not think those aspects of one's world view are relevant, but most do.