Why (Most) Journalists Are Idiots

Of course conservative journalists are going to talk about how amazing Palin was last night, it'll be the first duty of partisan hacks to hype what was a stylistically interesting but substanceless and angry speech. How entitled Republicans always are! How dare anyone threaten to take away control of the country, even if conservative governance has been an unqualified disaster, and currently suffers from idealogical bankruptcy and exhaustion. What gall democrats have! So it's not surprising to see the talking points on half of realclearpolitics saying this was the greatest speech God never gave. But what I find most repugnant is the tendency for the mainstream media to always tell a story in terms of what is most dramatically compelling, as opposed to what is actually true. Why the fawning over Palin's nasty sarcastic speech? What did it offer to the country in terms of how to fix the economy, improve health care, how to get off oil, or get out of Iraq (all issues that Americans agree upon)? Nothing, nada. But saying Palin 'electrifies the country' is a way to sell newspapers even if polling data doesn't actually, you know, prove it. I'm betting most independents found the speech nauseating, but we'll have to see.

Sidenote: Who's still an independent after the last eight years? Can you really not figure out who to vote for by now? Is it really that tough a choice either way? 'I really like that Barack guy but, you never know, he could be a terrorist who'll kill us all'. How? By giving you health care and tax breaks? I just don't get it.

Endnote: Community organizing, that is, helping poor people who lost their jobs because of steel mills closing, being a state senator and getting health care for thousands of people, being a US Senator and helping to secure stray nuclear weapons abroad so we don't all get killed by terrorists, passing ethics reform, and opposing the debacle in Iraq can't really hold a candle to supporting a Bridge to Nowhere, using your public office to get your sister's ex-husband fired, instilling the kind of family values that get your daughter pregnant at 17, choosing to have a baby when you're 44 and thus dramatically increasing the odds of the child having some kind of learning disability or birth defect, to saying global warming isn't man made, to supporting an organization that says Alaska should secede from the US and to forcing a woman who is raped by her Dad to have the baby. I surrender!