Barbarians

Well, we have learned that Mitt Romney was (maybe) a bully in school to (perhaps) a gay kid.  We've got those who obviously didn't like him in school telling us that he was a bully, and those who did like him telling us that he was a good guy who was just always playing pranks, and we have a candidate who can't seem to remember shaving a screaming boy's head 'cause maybe he did it so often it just slipped his mind.   But he wasn't punished by the school so either it never happened or Daddy's millions paid them off.  Pick the story you prefer to believe.

But then Obama has admitted bullying a girl in school in his autobiograhy...and we now know that he ate dog as a boy.  Maybe the dog fared better than the Romney family dog, forced to ride on the roof of a car 15 years ago.

Hey,folks...are these the sorts of things that we are going to weigh when making a choice for who is going to be the next leader of the free world?   Really?  A high school bully or a kid who ate the dog that was fed to him?

Anybody remember that little thing called "issues"?   Are we so obsessed with youthful indiscretions (no matter how egregious) that we prefer to discuss them...seemingly to death...rather than find out what each candidate plans to do about insignificant stuff like the economy, the budget, equal rights, health care, poverty.  OMG, we can't discuss those things because we have to get to the bottom of the current rumors, innuendos and scandals!

You know...?  Screw it.  I cared last time.  I don't care this time.  This country is so ridiculous that we are going to end up with the president we deserve.  I hope it's my guy (Obama), but I'm not going to get emotionally involved again, not when the media, left and right, is taking us down these bunny trails following every little rumor, the more salacious the better.

I am tired of listening to MSNBC commentators (except Rachel Maddow, whom I still like) phrasing questions designed to elicit exactly the kind of answer the questioner wants to get.  The interviewer knows damn well what the answer is that he wants and gives the interviewee no alternative but to give it to him.

I don't listen to FOX and probably I should to get a true "fair and balanced" opinion (the far left reporting of MSNBC and the far right reporting of FOX and then making my own decision), but my blood pressure just can't stand most of the talking heads there.  But then my blood pressure is getting to the point where I can't stand Chris Matthews or Ed Schulz either.  And I no longer miss Keith Olbermann at all.

What happened to candidates actually debating each other?   Oh we have what we call debates but neither candidate gets enough time to fully state a position and the structure of the debate makes it impossible to allow for an honest give and take.  How do you think the Lincoln/Douglas debates would have gone under the current rules we have for debates these days?  You don't really learn much about either candidate's position, but you sure do get a lot of talking points.  

And yeah--there's that buzz word thing.  Watch Jon Stewart or Rachel Maddow playing one clip after another, with each person on screen saying the exact same thing.  Totally coincidentally, of course.  

In a pig's eye.  

You gotta believe every person who is likely to go on TV is handed a script of points that the party (Democratic or Republican) wants them to make, and every single person does.  That's how the "etch-a-sketch" candidate came to be, how Kerry (and now everybody else) became a flip-flopper.  One day someone says something that sounds kind of catchy and the next day every single person interviewed is talking about the "bad" candidate using that phrase.

It's what's "trending" now (another catch word that has come into popular use within the past few months)

I may have to do something really radical and start watching the PBS News Hour, except they are now talking Romney and the hair incident too.

A friend of mine lost her mother sometime this past year and she started writing a haiku a day, which she has posted to Facebook, to help her work through her grief.  Perhaps it can help me get through this election.

Haiku of the Day

Mitt  was a bully
Obama ate some dog meat
Seven months to go