Here's a great example of why I'm really, really disappointed in the mainstream media.

Today, we're hearing all about lipstick. Google's top stories highlight the AP: "Lipstick put to more than one use in campaign"
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jb827iv54eCm7wXWPT_5aN4wHbzwD933TOF80

Apparently, last night Obama unleashed a real zinger on a real issue. I only caught this out of the corner of my eye, somewhere, maybe on reddit? Anyway, in Palin's convention speech she poo-poohed habeus corpus, and Obama's response was "Don't mock the constitution!" (fantastic line)

yet it only appears in a blog
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/08/obama_to_palin_dont_mock_the_c.html

and nowhere near the front pages where it belongs.

Lipstick. Ugh.

I'll repeat (for both of us?)Issue #1!




Another war criminal in the making.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

As much as I care about the Constitution, I don't think it's an issue for most people. I'd like to think that the last election was about people deciding that we needed a legislature that was willing to check a chief executive who was destroying the basic principles of our government, but I believe the more likely motivation was that people were pissed off about how the Iraq war was going.

I think most people don't care about habeas corpus and are just fine with rounding up a whole bunch of foreigners and holding them indefinitely just in case a few of them pose a danger--even though if another nation did the same to our citizens, we'd be outraged.

no no daniel, it's spelled "foreigners" but it's pronounced "people who look kind of foreign", which is what I'm sure you meant to say...

What amuses me is that the "mainstream media" are criticized by the Left as the corporate media, whereas they are criticized by the Right as the liberal media. Imagine being in a business verbally pummeled by both sides of the political spectrum. Some may conclude that by dint of this, they must be acting properly.

Interesting proposition.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred."

I explain it this way:

There are groups made up of citizens on both side s, but on the right big business wants freedom to be allowed to do what they can get away with in terms of employee compensation, consumer and public safety, the environment their property and yours; all at the smallest cost to them including taxes. They have lots and lots and lots of motive to corrupt government and pay off the media. Big business is funding our current push to drill for more US oil, even our politician’s motives to go to war.

Again, there are groups made up of citizens on both sides they ought to be matched in percentages representative of our citizenry.

What on the left balances out big business on the left?

I think that's way too easy.

The public is complicit in our policy decisions. If most of us didn't really want things to happen, then they wouldn't happen.

But time and time again, the majority want an easy way out: tax cuts without giving up anything for them, wars without paying for them, and more energy through unsustainable increases in oil imports and domestic production so that we don't have to change our habits.

Carter tried to tell us that real energy independence would require us to start making different choices in our lives, and he was trounced. Reagan sold the idea that we could have something for nothing, and he won twice. Since that time, any politician who suggests that people might actually have to do something on issues they say they care about runs the risk of getting kicked out of office, so few of them have the courage to even ask.

As Andrew Bacevich puts it in his book "The Limits of Power": "Yesterday's civic obligations have become today's civic options. What once rated as duties--rallying to the country's defense at times of great emergency, for example--are now matters of choice. As individuals, Americans never cease to expect more. As members of a community, especially as members of a national community, they choose to contribute less."

Too many people want to be told there's an easy way out, and too few are willing to actually do the work necessary to achieve the national goals to which they say they aspire. And that's not due to the influence of big business or any other interest group. As Shakespeare said, the fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Heck, the complaints about the influence of businesses in politics is itself an example. Plenty of people complain about big money in politics, and it would take very little per person to have a robust system of public campaign financing to counteract it. But too few people favor paying even the small amount necessary to do so. Too many people want it fixed for free, and there are no free fixes. Until we change that attitude, both in campaign finance and lots of other policy areas, we're going to keep getting what we're getting.

How come, when it comes radio talk shows of a political nature, wingnut bloviators take up nearly all of that airtime?

What once rated as duties--rallying to the country's defense at times of great emergency, for example--are now matters of choice. As individuals, Americans never cease to expect more.

I agree...to a point. We do unfortunately expect more because I think the majority of Americans like their tunnel vision served as the blue plate special. Cheaper, or for free.
However, I also think that we tire of having our pockets picked every time some politician wants to turn a civic obligation INTO a civic emergency. I know I do.

Plenty of people complain about big money in politics, and it would take very little per person to have a robust system of public campaign financing to counteract it.

When you mention "it would take very little per person", do you mean arbitrary or mandatory campaign contributions? If campaigning politicians want to eat cake, then let them get busy in the baking process. In other words, again, stay out of my pocket unless I allow you in it.