We watch... so you don't have to.
Kent Brockman Was Right -- Democracy Simply Doesn't Work
I am watching the election coverage against my better judgment, in part because my wife needs to watch it so that she can comment on it for the Canadian press but mostly because the baseball season ended a week ago. How long before pitchers and catchers report again?
I am sick of this election. I was sick of this election back in August when I was stuck on a cross-country plane flight in front of a guy who explained loudly and in great detail to his seatmates that he was voting for George W. Bush because that ensured the president could not run again in 2008 and that would clear the path for a Hillary Clinton candidacy. Now there are many reasons you could vote for George W. Bush -- you're heavily invested in Halliburton, you haven't cracked open a newspaper since 1999, you've suffered a recent brain injury -- but the idea that four more years would prepare the path for a second Clinton administration ain't one of them. Hey, loud, stupid passenger who flew on American Airlines Flight 75 from Dulles to LAX back in August: if you're so opposed to a Bush presidency that you want to make sure he can't serve past January 2009, why not vote against him this year, so that he can't serve past January 2005? Then you only have to grit your teeth for another couple of months instead of four more years. Not to cast asperions upon your iron-clad logic.
Anyhow, that incident soured me on the constant campaign gas-baggery from people who don't know what they're talking about, me included. And a second L.A.-to-D.C. flight last weekend pushed me further over the edge.
We were flying on JetBlue, which thoughtfully provides you with individual television sets so you don't have to listen to morons behind you talking about how the path to a Hillary Clinton presidency runs through a second term for Bush. The woman next to me spent the entire five-hour flight watching the Fox News Channel. She also drank enough vodka-flavored cocktails so that by the end of the flight, she had actually passed out and had to be roused by flight attendants so that I could exit the plane.
In her defense, if I had to listen to Bill O'Reilly for five hours, I would drink heavily too.
Anyhow, that flight was really my first prolonged exposure to the Fox News Channel. And I'm not sure I like what I saw.
Setting aside the question of political leanings -- you know, I think they're a little bit predisposed toward the Bush campaign over there -- most of the programs appear to be guests of dubious credentials talking over each other. Not to ape Jon Stewart here, but how does that do anything to serve the electorate, other than reinforce whatever dopey notions you already had?
And it's not stopping after tonight. No matter who winds up winning -- assuming that even will be settled by the time I'm showering tomorrow -- the losing side is going to spend the next several weeks blaming its defeat on all sorts of hobgobblins, seen and unseen. Voter intimidation! Hanging chads! Outright fraud! When the fact of the matter is, which ever side loses should place the blame squarely on the shoulders of their candidate, whether it's Republicans, who nominated an incumbent who failed by every objective measure, or Democrats, who nominated a guy unable to best an incumbent who failed by every objective measure.
