After Shabbos, I got wind of the story about Rush Limbaugh getting duped by an Obama thesis hoax. Ok, so it does happen from time to time in today's fast-paced, sensationalist media that news stories are talked about before all the facts are checked. And political talk radio consists of mostly opinions, and a very warped view of facts anyway.
No, the kicker here is Rush found out that he had been had during the show. Yet his response was that he did not care if the quotes are fake, "I know Obama thinks it". Really Rush? Are you G-d now, you know the "thoughts" of random people? Now he did equate his conclusion with one that Dan Rather said about G.W. Bush; but come on now Rush; you sound like nothing but a spoiled little child here.
I don't know why Republicans are not out on the streets rioting over these mindless hijackers of the Republican party. While there is some murmur underfoot about this travesty, the reaction is still too subdued. Why is there not a single conservative, political commentary voice out their who will just tell folks like Rush and Anne Coulter to just be quiet already? While I do not find Glenn Beck to be as bad; I see him as a smart entrepreneur who is reaping huge returns on sensationalism and pandering to the latent fears of many Americans (conservatives and not). But even he won't stand up and call out the ridiculous showing that political talk radio/TV has become.
Yet on the side of the Democrats, we have no, serious intellectual political commentators to combat this evil force either. In fact, the Democrats are curiously quiet - for being in the GOP position. I am not sure why this is. After 8 years, we have returned back on the scene. Why no excitement, why no surge in growth and support of the Democratic platform. Isn't this what we have been praying for?
So I am not so up to speed on political commentary and news. I decided to Google to find some sort of way to disprove my thesis, and discover a liberal Glenn Beck counterpart. I didn't find anything. But I did find that Starzlife writes about Michelle Obama's wardrobe, and that there is going to be some sort of reality show called "The District" that is supposed to star Obama; in an indirect way (still trying to figure out how they are going to pull this off...but whatever).
So here we are, in one of the most prosperous, most rights-granting country on earth, and the populace does not seem to encourage diverse political thought. We would rather have the loud mouths speak on our behalf and go back to oogling over waif-looking actresses and singers. Behind us are the days when the youth were interested in working through the political system to make changes in how this country operates. The deep economic divisions have spilled over into our idealogical thinking and middle to low-class Americans have lost interest our political system. I wonder if it is not the system that is broken, but rather the people.
The American left and right have become so polarized; in my humble, totally non-expert, I feel that it will be a huge stumbling block towards getting anything fixed in this country. Democrats seem to be fine with being painted as shallow, devoid of morals, and irresponsible. The media, even the "leftist" media imply that Obama did not win the presidency because he is qualified, but rather because he has a great personality and an element of "star power" about him. I voted for him because he was qualified...I hope a minority of others voted for him due to the latter scenario.
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