On the Contrary

I see we have another killing spree in Orlando, Florida.  What we need is more guns so more people can shoot themselves in the crossfire.  More continuous coverage where nobody knows anything and speculation will masquerade as news.

I have turned off the TV and refuse to watch the endless rumor mongering about what happened at Fort Hood.  I have heard so many different scenarios representing each guest’s agenda, that sooner or later the real story gets lost.  I worked at Fort Hood for three years and even their description of it was warped.  Our media has become nothing more than the next rumor, right here, right now, before anyone else can actually verify it or mislead you with it.  Why oh why can’t they just report the facts of what they really know when it is confirmed and leave the endless speculation out all together.  Pretty soon they will have a Republican and a Democratic strategist to give their interpretation.  Is it any wonder that the American people have a very poor grasp on the facts?  They are presented with too many alternatives before the facts are ever really known.

We all have seen the news about the Administration calling Fox News what it is, a political arm of the Republican Party.  Last week the Administration put their new executive pay czar out for interviews, and because they didn’t recognize Fox as a news organization anymore, did not invite them.  The other networks objected and the Administration relented.  I guess their thinking was that if you can ostracize one news organization based upon its reporting, then you can control the media.  It is flawed logic and like when they totally failed us on WMD, they are making a very similar error here.

Now as the arguments go, the thought is that all the networks have their opinion shows and so what is the big deal, other than Fox is more anti-Administration than the rest.  If this were true, then the other media outlets that supported Fox in this tiff with the Administration would be correct in their stand against the Administration.  But that is not how Fox operates.  Fox has taken a page from Dick Cheney when he manipulated the press so successfully on WMD.

What Dick did was to leak a piece of intelligence that was false (yellow cake uranium) to the press, and then in interviews cite the source, say the New York Times, to say that reliable sources have identified this threat.  In effect he was creating a false rumor and then using it to manipulate the media into echoing this falsehood.  This is exactly how Fox operates.  Their nut-jobs like Beck or Limbaugh make some outrageous claim and then it is a running story on the real “news” shows all day on Fox.  This along with the documented instances where the news was a direct quote from Republican talking points, and the fact the network actively engages in fund raising and organizing to remove this administration certainly pushes them out of the category of a news organization and into the category of a propaganda arm for a political organization.

As I have chronicled in the past, most of the news media out there is deplorable with their failure to fact check their guest’s claims and allowing their statements to stand unchallenged.  But that is simply bad journalism.  But when a news organization takes a false statement and then heavily biases it with making it a running theme for the news day, interviewing only those that support these outrageous statements, it becomes propaganda.  So what the other news media outlets did in supporting Fox against the administration was not to defend access to the Administration, but for a media outlet to become a propaganda tool for a political party.  You think they would understand the difference between news and propaganda and how damaging it could be to the whole news business if this kind of propaganda passes as journalism.

You probably don’t remember when the Bush Administration ostracized Richard Engel of CNN after an interview with President Bush where he challenged many of President Bush’s statements about Iraq.  This was cited as an example of how the media must support reporters and their media owners who ask hard questions and challenge the Administration.  But there is a big difference.  Richard’s questions and challenges were based upon fact.  Much of Fox News stories turn out to be bogus or exaggerated.  So there is a big difference between taking an ethical stand where a media stands up to power with truth, and where a media continuously promulgates false information as propaganda and then is offended when access is denied.

The Administration needs to find its backbone and the rest of the news media needs to re-examine their logic and values if they don’t want to become just entertainers instead of journalists.  The Administration’s real fear is that if Fox is allowed to set the agenda on what is covered in the news, and the rest of the media follow them, real news is dead.  I agree with them.  Our country depends upon objective news to give us the facts about an issue.  If the news media becomes more and more a creature of the outlandish without real fact checking, then our media will be know as those guys who get the latest rumor to you first.  Maybe that is what they are now.

If you doubt we aren’t headed down this road think about how the balloon story that dominated the news last week.  This whole story was a hoax by a person who wanted more media coverage and the media, like deprived addicts needing a fix, fell right in line to maximize coverage.  Sooner or later they are going to have to step back and decide whether they are journalists with an extremely important role in our society, or they are part of our declining ability to think critically.  There latest stand with Fox News says to me we are headed for a train wreck.

Today I purposely tuned into CNN’s Reliable Sources to see if Howard Kutz would discuss John Stewart’s demonstration of their total lack of journalistic professionalism by again and again failing to fact test the wild claims Republicans have been making, while they did take some of their busy time to fact check a SNL sketch of Obama failures.  The piece that John did was instructive of how the media fails to correct obvious inaccuracies (See Monday’s Blog, Tis the Winter of My Discontent) leaving false impressions of credibility to outright lies or miss-characterizations. It is probably the most important thing the press could have examined about how they are manipulated by politicians and become simply megaphones for the message.

In one of the more cowardly moves by CNN, they ignored the story, probably because it reflects so badly on the professionalism of their journalists.  What was demonstrated is that these guys and gals are too lazy to do their homework and are just there to echo whatever is said.  It is why we went to war in Iraq for non-existent weapons of mass destruction and it is why the American public is so poorly informed on issues today.  CNN will be the last place I will be getting my news and once again, John Stewart stands as a giant among real journalists, and is the only trusted news source left.

Yesterday, I am sure you read where the Coast Guard was practicing Homeland Security on the Potomac, which they do routinely, and somehow CNN got it in their head that shots were fired, started reporting this, and then the FBI reacting to CNN reports, responded and shut down National (Ronald Reagan, Ugh) Airport.  All of this based upon quick draw reporting by CNN to be first with the news.  And it tells you all you want to know why we have such a nation of ill informed citizens.  The poor Coast Guard will now probably have to clear it with CNN before they train for the real thing.

Look at the Joe Wilson affair.  The media jumped all over the story, the apology, and the enshrining of Joe the idiot as a conservative hero, but initial reporting did not immediately point out that he was wrong, dead wrong.  If you want a simplified way to understand this we won’t pay for the  treatment of illegal aliens thing, the rules under the existing programs prohibit this, but everybody gets treated in an emergency room.  Asking for proof of citizenship before providing CPR is truly George Orwellian, but is what the conservatives want, yet they hate big government.  But I digress.  It was not made clear upfront that not only was George Wilson a rude SOB, but he was flagrantly lying.  So what you have left is he said, she said, and it is no wonder people are confused.

The coverage of Town Hall meetings are a variation of the same thing.  The media covered the uproar because it was good entertainment, but not the facts directly challenging these nitwits.  We see the same thing in the two political shills they bring on to discuss issues.  When the Republicans raise death panels or treatment for immigrants, the media stands on the side lines (except for David Schuster of MSNBC) and lets the food fight happen instead of pointing out what is known fact so the discussion is an honest one.  If we give too arguing parties equal footing even though one is crazier than a loon, you have unfairly lent more credibility to nonsense and abdicated your role as a journalist.  Again what we are left with, without the leveling influence of the moderator fact checking, is he said, she said, and the viewing public is confused.

In another episode, I took an hour off the other day to work out on the elliptical trainer and catch up on the news on TV.  It was non-stop coverage of the aircraft hijacking in Mexico where they knew nothing, and mindless conjecture became “news”.  Wolfe Blitzer of CNN asked one reporter from Mexico if this did not immediately remind one of 9/11.  9/11!  A group of Bolivians hijack a airliner from Cancun and he is thinking 9/11?  The reporter he asked had my reaction also, but politer.  The point is they knew nothing so they filled airtime with rumors and outright conjecture instead of saying, “the hijacking has ended and all are safe, we will return to this story when we have any facts.”  How many people, I wonder, listened to some of that conjecture which was flat out wrong, took it for fact since it was reported on TV, and that is what they believe about this incident?

So we have a nation of confused and ill informed people who then make irrational choices about their future and the reason is that our media is in the entertainment mode rather than the informing mode.  From fact checking whether there were really shots fired to pissing contests between partisan flacks and mindless conjecturing based on thin air, they have failed us as journalists.  Of course they accept no blame for any of it, much like those who don’t want to pay taxes and then are shocked, shocked, shocked, I tell you, when the infrastructure falls apart.  Marching on to oblivion.

Apparently Bill Maher was on CNN a couple of weeks ago and when asked if he thought Sarah Palin could be elected President, he said, “I hope not, but I would not put anything past this stupid country.” This started a landslide of hate mail and he responded to it with a new rule, “Just because this country elects a smart President doesn’t make this a smart country,” and a wonderful essay about the level of stupidity in this country (Bill Maher: New Rule).

Of course I am watching the health care “debate” and I believe his argument is moot because the level of stupidity is obvious.  What is on display are amazingly stupid people who lack the critical thinking skills to evaluate and separate lies and propaganda from real issues.  I watched a Democratic Congressman from Texas asked his Town Hall gathering who were dead set against a single payer system, how many were on Medicare.  About three-quarters raised their hands.  Then he asked them how many of them had healthcare that was financed by the government and only a few raised their hands.  This is the very definition of ignorance and stupidity.  With that level of ignorance, debate is hopeless.

What I really love is our media keeps repeating that the support for President Obama’s health care plan has fallen, while proponents of the plan urge Democrats and the grass roots support that elected President Obama to get out and support the plan.  Here is my question:  DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT IS IN HIS PLAN?

The answer of course is an emphatic NO because he has left it to Congress to craft it and it is in hiding.  That is why there is falling support, the grass roots haven’t come out, and the know-nothings are controlling the debate.  I would highly recommend a frontal assault on the know-nothings, but you have to have a plan to defend and right now the White House strategy is failing badly.  Pick one Mr. President, but pick a plan we can fight for, not some watered down plan meant to preserve the status quo and the profits for the industry.

But I digress.  In an editorial this morning by Charles Blow (Health Care Hullabaloo), he used the phrase, “Belligerence is the currency of the intellectually bankrupt” to describe what is going on out in the hinterlands.  The fact that so many can be swayed by this type of “logic” makes me fear for the future of this country.  What I do see at most of these Town Hall meetings, sadly, are mostly fat ignorant white people who are going to be most hurt when they no longer can afford their health care.  And sadly many speakers had that southern drawl that characterizes a particularly ignorant portion of our country.  Actually, ignorant may not be the right characterization, but racist might be more appropriate.  The ignorant are the easiest to whip up into a frenzy as you stoke their fires of fear.  This particular fire is change and people different from you.  One woman before the podium was weeping and said they had stolen her country.  Yep, we need to return to the good 60’s where those blackies and other off color people new their place and the country was full of injustice.

Anyone who reads or thinks knows this country is in decline and has been for sometime.  There was an interesting story in the business pages of the New York Times about the fact that job growth over the last 10 years has been infinitesimal (Job Growth Lacking in the Private Sector)

You mean that after all those tax cuts during the Bush years, we barely created any jobs? This is not a trend we want to keep up.  It is time to take a new path and try something different.  But what we are seeing is a Republican Party that is firmly planted in the past and is bought and paid for by those that do benefit from our current economic path (the rich and the corporations).  Their offering to the public is no change, fear of change, and “small town values”.  “I got mine, screw you.”  It is anti-intellectual, irrational, and destined for failure.  But apparently large portions of our population are ignorant and easily scared into believing this nonsense.

Probably what is most sad is that the people who will suffer the most from continuing our failed approaches to the economy, health care, energy, climate, you name it, are the same people who are bellowing for no change.  How do you actually have a rational debate with these people, I have no idea.  But I am in my frontal assault mode and I would like to see both the press and the Democrats take them on and belittle stupid people.  Unless we are willing to point out their stupidity, embarrassed and more importantly debunk their hysteria, we are likely to continue down the same path that has got us nowhere in the last 30 years (Ronald Reagan on).

I hope we are up to the challenge.  As I get older, I am becoming less tolerant of stupidity and people who don’t read or think. After watching the Town Hall “debates”, maybe more people ought to be less tolerant of this intolerance.  More people ought to confront this level of ignorance head on.  Apparently Bill Maher will.  Thank you Bill.  Your honesty is so refreshing.

Oh there is just so much to reflect on this week.  From Bill to Sarah the fun just never stops:

• Bill Rescues Ling and Lee – Did anybody consider that this pardon by the North Korean fruitcake Kim Jong-il is simply a random act in his bizarre behavior and means nothing more than a photo-op with Bill?  Maybe I should take Chelsea hostage.  Same failed logic.

• Sarah Palin Bashes Press – Anybody note that press hating Sarah Palin was out on the town in New York City in a restaurant where the rich and famous go to be seen when she called a reporter and got him out of bed so she could refute Sarah rumors?  Why or why doesn’t she just ignore them?  Maybe they are her bread and butter.

• White House has Deal with the Pharmaceutical Industry – It was reported in the New York Times that the White House had made a deal with these price gougers to limit their damage due to the federal governments ability to negotiate prices under any new health care reform.  Like this is news.  Why do you think Harry and Louise have been out there shucking for health care reform?  Anything Harry and Louise want should be a warning to avoid it.  I believe real health care reform is dead for this year.

• Without a Health Care Bill, the Obama Presidency is Over – Or so say the pundits who generally get everything wrong and sound like a chorus of robots.  What probably would kill the Obama Presidency is to sign a bill that includes more people, but doesn’t reform the system so costs will go out of sight.  That is what the Pharmaceutical Industry and Insurance Industry are praying for.  Without a vibrant single payer system, and excuse my French, we are just pissing into the wind.  Some of us think that President Obama could gain some real traction on the conservatives if he gets a watered down and useless bill, and he vetoes it.   But that means he has to take a stand now on what should be in it and we haven’t seen that yet.

• Media Talking Heads have a Lot of Free Space Between Their Ears – I was listening to MSNBC the other morning and one of the chatty Kathys (Contessa’s) that mistakes her continued editorializing as news, commented on the disruption of the Democrats Town Hall Meetings as that is what democracy is all about isn’t it, and didn’t they have the same thing during our Constitutional debate?  Apparently she forgot that the Constitutional Convention itself was done in secret with George Washington presiding over the proceedings to set the tone for the decorum.  Then of course, there were the Federalist Papers, reasoned arguments for the propositions, and then there were the debates in each State’s legislature.  What pray tell does that have to do with mob intimidation and stifling of debate? No Contessa, shouting matches are not democracy.  Go fix your makeup.

• Conservatives Criticize Ling and Lee Release – Conservatives are all up in arms because we caved in to North Korea.  Let’s see if I have this right:  They would be gung ho to attack a country that takes our citizens (consider Iran and the hikers), but a little diplomacy and constrained behavior that gets no one killed is anti-American.  You got to love these guys and gals.  They are consistent in their stupidity.

• 40,000 Inmates Must Be Released – Locally a three judge federal panel ordered California to reduce its inmate population by over 40,000 due to the inhumane conditions caused by overcrowding.  Maybe this idea of warehousing people without rehabilitation and throwing non-violent drug offenders in jail is not a good idea.  Considering that it costs California over $43,000 per inmate, per year, to warehouse them, this might have something to do with our budget problems?  Duh!

• New Marine Sanctuaries Approved in California – This seems like another no-duh moment as the fish populations off the coast are collapsing.  But there was strong opposition ranging from this will have a negative impact on local economies, to we don’t have the resources to enforce the sanctuaries so let’s wait until we do.  Both arguments I find monumentally stupid.  Okay, so your fishing economy will be hurt.  If the fish populations collapse, how do you think that will impact your economy and your children’s?  On the enforcement thing, you would think these guys could learn from land developers.  We they get a project denied because it is incompatible with local growth or is over reaching, they just wait until a downturn in the economy and then reapply.  They have no intent to build then, but they know that local planning commission in tough times will approve about anything to stimulate business.  Well you morons, strike while the iron is hot and get the sanctuaries in place.  Later we can deal with enforcement.  Duh!

Another week with little gems of wisdom hidden in the rush of information.

Health care reform is probably dead.  As reported in the New York Times in an article entitled “Health Policy Now Carved Out at a More Centrist Table”, six conservatives, all well paid by the medical insurance lobby, are controlling our fate.  One of the great misrepresentations by our media is that these people are centralist.  They are conservative and they will continue to apply failed conservative thinking to tweak a system that needs a complete overhaul.  The group is led by Senate Finance Committee chairman, Max Baucas of Montana, who represents 0.32% of our population, and is the biggest beneficiary of health insurance lobby money.

The rest are as follows:  Olympia Snow of Maine (representing 0.43% of our population); Charles Grassley of Iowa (representing 0.99% of our population); Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming (representing 0.18% of our population); Kent Conrad of North Dakota (representing 0.21% of our population); and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico (representing 0.65% of our population).  Yes you got that right.  Senators representing 2.78% of our population, basically in conservative Middle America, are determining our fate.  Senators representing almost 1/5 the population of California or 1/3 the population of the State of New York will decide how the rest of us get health care.  Or as Howard Dean said yesterday on the Rachel Maddow show, what we will get is some reform of the health insurance, but the same dysfunctional health care system will be left untouched.  It is no wonder we are becoming a backwater nation led by Senators who represent Brithers and other morons who can’t think bigger than their conspiracy theories or their pocket books.

Just look at the discussion and the fear tactics used as to how to pay for it.  One of our major problems is that we have an employer based health care system.  The obvious answer is to end that whole concept and we pay a surcharge from our income that covers everyone.  Saying we can’t afford it is really kind of insane when no one asks if we can afford the Iraq/Afghanistan war, subsidies to agribusiness, or the bail out to banks who are now screwing us on credit cards.  What this battle is really about is those who represent the health care insurance industry and the rest of us.  Right now the health care industry drones are winning.

One last thought on the failure to reform health care.  My friend and golfing buddy, Tom Griffin, shared a real insight with me the other day as I was slicing a ball off the course.  Abraham Lincoln had it wrong.  He should have let the South secede and then we would not be held hostage to all these backwards thinkers (the whole Republican Party).  Here is one other thought for you.  If Senators were empowered based upon the size of the population they represent, the Republican Party would be an afterthought.  Maybe it is time to revisit that concept in the Constitution.  You can guess who would be against it.

Note something really important in this debate we are seeing played out in the media.  We don’t see any health care professionals who have studied the system helping us to understand what is being proposed or using their considerable expert experience to help us understand if it will work.  What we get is an endless political discussion which is about who wins, Republicans or Democrats.  I see that as the great failure of the news media today, their failure to educate instead of titillate.  That is one of the major reasons why we have little hope of making any real progress until things are dire.  The one exception was an interview on the Bill Moyers Journal with journalist Trudy Lieberman and Dr. Marcia Angell on health care reform.  It was depressing to understand from these two how failed our debate has become.

So we continue down the road of ignorance is bliss and our media allowing fiction and wild claims (Republican quotes from the Levin Group or anecdotal falsehoods about Canadian health care) to stand unchallenged and we march off, going nowhere.  I have very little hope anymore that real change is possible in this country.

I was watching one of the news media shows where they had a balanced panel of commentators discussing whether it would be to the Democrats advantage or disadvantage to push for investigations of the Bush administration (torture, wire tapping, leaking classified information to the press).  I put balanced in italics because each of these commentators is a mouthpiece for their particular political persuasion.  That means that everything they say is crafted to make their party affiliation look good, so very little honesty goes on here.  But what you do hear is the conventional wisdom of Washington.  That is, what is the incestuous Washington talking heads thinking is reality.  On this particular day, the conventional wisdom is that this would be bad for the Democrats to hold the Republicans accountable for breaking the law.  It would hurt their agenda.

I think they have this so wrong as to be almost stupefyingly ignorant.   Their thought (a rare agreement among the whole group) is that it would detract from the Democrat’s agenda of health care, energy, and the economy.  Now for the conservatives on the panel, this position is very self-serving.  Why would they want to expose the depth of their depravity?  But as usual, the Democrats on this panel are about a mile behind the public and fail to see a jugular exposed when they see it, much less know what to do with it.  And more importantly, they fail to see that their agenda means nothing if they don’t stand up for their basic beliefs in the law and our Constitution.

But here is the real crux of the issue:  The American people have been on this free ride where sacrifice and accountability have been eschewed for having it all now.  They are seeing the results, except for the Bankers and the wealthy, who have reaped the benefits of this system of short term gains.  They know this can’t go on.  They are looking for core values that give them hope for the future.  The Republicans are looking stranger and stranger as they try to maintain the status quo when most Americans are demanding change.  They have no plans for the problems that face us but to either deny them, or to block any attempts to fix them by the Democrats, which might look like success.  But if Democrats become more interested in their agenda than in their core values, they start to look like Republicans where the ends justifies the means.

The very essence of change in America will begin when we start standing up for our core principals, even when doing so might be painful.  And Americans are hungering for belief in something again.  What the Democrats are missing is that these investigations will expose the Republicans for the valueless party they are.  It will de-legitimize them in the eyes of most Americans.  It will actually make change easier in the future once Americans have been exposed to the crass hypocrisy of the present Republican Party and see a party that is willing to risk short term gains for the long term good when they stand up for their values.  It will establish the Democrats as the party of values and real change instead of just more of the same.  Most importantly it will reestablish the rule of law, fairness, and the supremacy of the Constitution, what America is really about.

I won’t fool you and tell you this will be easy.  I won’t tell you that some Democrats are not going to get mowed over in the process because they enabled some of this stuff.  But that is the whole point.  What is important is never easy and sacrifice is required.  Look at the health care debate.  The whole thing is revolving around being revenue neutral.  Why?  People hear revenue neutral and they think no sacrifice.  It is going to cost what it costs and we have to do it.  Pay for it with a surcharge across all wages and salaries.  It is a shared burden.  That’s a new concept.  The point here is that it is time for honesty and the American people are looking for leadership that embodies honesty.  When the Democrats say that their agenda is more important than honesty, they have put their agenda at risk.

There is one other side benefit of pressing forward with these investigations.  It may save the Republican Party from itself.  If you believe in a two party system, but both of the two parties are now in the Democratic Party with the Republican Party the lunatic fringe, then exposing the baseness of the Republicans and how the caved in to power will be the first step in helping them rebuild themselves.  Until the nation is forced to look at what they have wrought, and reject them totally, they will continue to pander to the psychos in their base, and not bring responsible plans to the table for our future.  Tearing them apart is the first step in healing this nation and restoring a responsible and viable Republican Party.

So as usual the Washington Press and the political pundits have it exactly wrong.  They are looking for the short-term gain, instead of the long term win.  But that has been both our politics and economic philosophy for the last 30 years.  I guess change is really very hard.  President Obama has fallen victim to this shot sightedness.  Hopefully he is starting to see the light.

President Obama had a town hall meeting on Wednesday and he took on the hard questions about health care.  He answered them well and took the opportunity provided by these venues to fully explain his plan and the alternatives.  As soon as it was over in TV land, it was back to the Michael Jackson saga.  Continuous coverage of his death and the mess his life was is non-stop.  Please stop it.

What is most enlightening is the pandering going on by the media, anyone black, entertainers, and anyone else who is afraid to raise obvious questions about “the king of pop”.  It also shows us that worship of celebrity is so much more important in our society than a real examination of one’s real worth to society.  Case in point is all the fawning over what a kind and loveable person Jackson was.  Really?  That certainly was his image, but it is too dangerous to enter the territory to really examine what by any measure was a disaster of a life right now.  You might look out of touch.  But since I have been out of touch with popular America for most of my life, here goes.

Okay he could sing and dance.  And he could do it with the very best of them.  But let us not confuse the entertainer with the person, which is of course exactly what we are doing.  By all accounts Michael Jackson left his affairs in a superb mess.  The children are fathered (and for that matter mothered) by who?  Do they in fact have legitimate birth certificates, and what person in their right mind would leave the children he professed to love so dearly in total legal limbo?  His mother or Diana Ross for guardians?  Dad cut out of the will.  That ought to tell you something.

Then there is his financial mess of an estate with an estimated debt of half a billion dollars.  Kind of makes your little credit card problem very small potatoes.  In all fairness, it is possible that royalties and memorabilia will make this up in the years to come (not to mention owning half of the Beatles song collection).  Those who knew him said he could not brook discussions on economics.  Okay, hire someone.  But the trust thing was another indicator of a truly disturbed personality.  His entourage was always changing and there were continuous reports of fallings out with A or B. He had so many doctors, it was obvious he was prescription shopping.   But he was an artist and artists are temperamental.  Or he was a jerk?

Then there is, of course, his strange behavior with children, which if you were profiling a child molester, he would fit it perfectly.  Of course he was not convicted, but like O.J., that doesn’t make him innocent.  If I had his money, I would never have settled the cases he did settle out of court when my reputation was at stake.  Maybe his fans want to believe he was asexual, but where there is smoke there is fire.  Meanwhile nary a disparaging word is echoed as the press and anyone who can get airtime pines on about the wonderful Michael Jackson, his troubled life, his recently discovered will, and of course the secret wives coming out of the woodwork.  And the reality is who cares or more importantly who should care?

So what does all this tell me?  It tells me that our celebration of celebrity has robbed us of our important reasoning skills.  It shows me that the press is nothing but an echo chamber of the conventional wisdom and popular trends.  It shows me how many people will do and say anything to get face time on our TVs.  It shows me why most Americans cannot have an intelligent discussion about health care, or energy policy, or gays in the military, reforming the banking system, or the way forward in Afghanistan.  It tells me why people listen to Rush Limbaugh and other conservative demagogues.  It tells me why people still listen to Vice President Cheney, and why we elect such morons to represent us in Congress who get nothing done.  It tells me that critical thinking skills are a rare commodity these days.