I don’t care about Rev. Wright, or what McCain did or didn’t say, or snooping into Obama’s passport record, or Hillary’s White House schedule when Bill was prez, or any of the other banal trivialities being passed off as news..
All of it is almost totally irrelevant. The presidential campaign is already disintegrating into a swamp of attacks, innuendo, and we still have seven more months to go. Imagine the crazed levels of hysterical attacks we’ll be hearing come October. Might be a good time to leave the country or unplug from the Net.
The economy has huge problems, the country is fighting and losing two wars, millions may get foreclosed – and none of the candidates are addressing any of this in a serious way. We need to know from all of them what their plans of action are, not sound bites or feel-good phrases, but real, workable solutions.
But we probably won’t get that. Attack ads and sliming are so much easier to do.
The Flame Wars will probably rival the last days of the ‘bulletin boards’.
I’m thinking by November I’ll be overly caught up on the History Channel programming… Science channel, SciFi, Discovery, Spike, FX… and every one of the dollar a night movies out of that big red box at Safeway. In addition to re-reading my collections of Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Hillerman and L’Amour.
The beauty of having dropped out once is in the ease of doing so again.
It’s enough to make one wish they didn’t get TV. Oh, wait, I DON’T get TV! What a concept: read a book, build a 1:160 model of a 1920s gold mining complex, reload some 6.5×55, spend time with the animals, have a conversation with the wife, play backgammon… This may be sacreligious, but there IS life without TV.
Uh, DJ, you live on the Net almost as much as I do.
Even on the issue side, what are the odds that we’ll hear something new? The main issues that will constantly be discussed will be civil rights, economy, abortion, firearm regulations, education and international relations. The most recent addition is environment and even that topic is not new. It’s pathetic, but those have been the main issues for decades now and none of it will change because the elections will remain a popularity contest, where the candidate popularity has nothing to do with political merit.
DJ, I’ve been known to shoot TVs. I didn’t even have one until a couple of moths ago.
Actually, I spend less than two hours a day on the net, except when I’m using it for work. But I admit that’s where I get almost all of my news.
Alek is right: even if they did talk about issues, it’s likely we’ll hear the same knee-jerk party-line BS as always. GOP is pro-gun, Dems are anti-gun. Both want to cut taxes and spending, but both want to spend more money. Compromise? Real solutions? That doesn’t play well on TV.