Mal de Media or Why the Media is Pushing Me Into Wrist-Cutting Mode?
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I am depressed. I am frightened. I think Obama may lose because taking the high road may end up being the road back to his seat in the senate.
I'm not the only one who is worried. Virtually all my friends, my social network, are seeing whispering, muttering ravens everywhere and are sure they're hearing owls calling out the name Obama as they perch on branches over the river Styx. We've watched with ulcerated astonishment as the likes of Rove, Schmidt, and Palin have removed the stake from the Republican corpse which we were told might be dead for a decade or two, and reanimated it in a brief span of two weeks.
The bad news seemed inescapable. I was at a museum opening a few days ago, enjoying myself, luxuriating in my break from a news tracking, poll tracking, pundit chattering cable-mainlining jag, immersing myself in an exhibition of 19th and 20th century presidential election memorabilia (distance in time is distance from grief). While reading some presidential election trivia (shortest U.S. President, 5'4" James Madison), a usually chipper friend came up to talk about the election and how gloomy he was. Another friend came up to us, as if drawn by a morbid magnet, and poured out her world weariness and election pessimism.
We traded aghasts for a few minutes and then concluded that if the Democrats lose this election, the Democratic Party is through, especially as the party leaders are flat out too incompetent to run a presidential campaign against the Republicans or do what has to be done in congress. It won't be called the Bull Moose II Party for sure, not after Sarah Palin, but it won't sure won't be the Democratic Party anymore either. As they walked away, nodding and shaking their heads at the same time I realized that I was depressed again. My museum escape route ended up being the river walk in The Blair Witch Project. I was back where I started.
Then, last night, I watched Keith Olbermann to see how he would handle being demoted by MSNBC, taken off the presidential debate panel of questioners because of how he, Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough and others handled coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions. Truthfully, it wasn't a pretty picture, their convention performances, what with squabbling, name calling, snideness, snarkyness, petulance, you name it. It reminded me of the now-classic William F. Buckley-Gore Vidal debate debacle during the 1968 election.
But Olbermann -- and Matthews -- were replaced on Sunday in part because the Republican Party complained about their partisanship. Are you kidding me?! The party of Fox News complaining about partisanship...well, yeah, I guess so, why wouldn't they? That's what they do. With straight faces.
Last night, though, Olbermann acted as though nothing of the sort happened. It was business as usual. Demoted. Me? I have no idea.... Then he began his touted interview with Barack Obama. Like my friends and I, Keith seemed distressed about the high road commitment Obama's campaign has taken while his poll numbers drop and he's getting body slammed and beaten like a piñata by the likes of Sarah P. while the McCain-Palin campaign managers are saying this election is not going to be about issues but about personalities. And they're doing it. And they seem to be succeeding. Ya gotta love these guys.
Keith kept asking Obama if he's going to change strategy and hit harder and Obama kept saying, in effect, no; not in so few words, mind you, but "no" nonetheless. Americans are too smart to be fooled by the same ole, same ole 2 X4 approach to campaigning of the Rove-Schmidt axis of evil he didn't say as such, but implied. Well, readers, I think Obama is out of his #$$% mind. As are his strategists. Where's the evidence that the public is too smart to be fooled, taken in? 2000?, 2004? Vote for the guy you would want to have beer with? Who's like you? Former Nebraska Republican Senator, Roman Hruska, must be laughing in his populist grave.
Rachel Maddow's debut show followed Olbermann. She was also upset about how the poll numbers are going and how maybe, for her too, it's enough with the high road, the nuanced discussion of the issues. People who get it already have it; those who don't, won't. Former Democratic N.Y. State governor, Mario Cuomo, a wise, wise, eloquent man, said that you campaign in poetry but you govern in prose. Sorry sir, not against the Republicans, not if you want the chance to govern in prose.
But what Maddow and Olberman kept and keep doing, which keeps REALLY ANNOYING ME, is laughing derisively at the Republican candidates and the Republican gambits and stratagems and game plans. Meanwhile, the Republicans are picking the Democrats' pockets and sticking KICK ME signs on the backs of their jackets. I found myself mentally screaming at the TV, at Rachel and Keith: Wake up, for god's sake!!! These guys deserve respect for discovering how to win; win dirty, yes, win ugly, yes, win sometimes criminally in terms of vote suppression, yes. Respect the enemy for their tactical skills at winning battles AND wars. Then, suddenly, I was mentally screaming at Obama: fight them like Burt Lancaster's Elmer Gantry promised to fight the devil. Deride them no more. You make fun and they beat you black and blue. All the while the American electorate keeps sitting on a well-crafted screw.
Most modern Republican Party leaders since Nixon seem to feel the ends justify the means, even if the means destroy the gasping ends, a once proud nation now merely a house divided. Democrats must not do the same thing. But they do need to know their enemy for what he is, what he is willing to do, and what the American voter seems willing to believe. Obama's campaign must fight them with truth, and, as necessary, make them down and dirty truths, not utter only noble truths. This is not now the age of nobility. It may be again someday but now it's a time to fight with tools befitting the stakes-our nation's soul. In these times, it is whether you win or lose, not how you play the game. But will, (can?, will?, what's the word?) the Democrats make the switch?
I turned off the TV after feeling sick over Keith and Rachel. Found it hard to sleep. Mind kept racing, stomach kept churning, teeth kept gnashing. Then, like old what's his name discovering gravity, it hit me! (once again) -- I was making myself sick. I was talking to my friends too much. Watching the news shows too much. Reading the paper too much. Prophesying too much. I was ODing on bad news and bad ruminations; trying to read by the light of a bad moon rising.
Being up on the news is a good thing. But, can there be too much of a good thing? Yes.
(continued tomorrow)
