A Clarification

(Note-  I tend to start writing posts and then forget about them for days at a time.  This is one of them… but I felt the need to finish it.  -ST)

A lot of times, I post comments on blogs and don’t exactly check back to see if anyone reacted one way or the other.  For instance, I don’t visit 4&20 Blackbirds nearly as much as I used to when Jay was the proprietor over there, and when I do, I don’t comment very often.  However, a few days ago there was a post that didn’t necessarily rankle my feathers, it just pointed to a trend that happened to be rankling my feathers.  I tend to dislike fake outrage coming from either party, but I dislike even more seeing real outrage generated by fake outrage (Reverend Wright, anyone?).  Here’s the post that got to me:

McCain Admits He’s “Divorced from the Day-to-Day Challenges People Have”

Poor presidential candidate John McCain. He doesn’t get the day-to-day challenges that are the reality for us Americans.

“Listen, mayors have the toughest job, I think, in America. It’s easy for me to go to Washington and, frankly, be somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have.”

And apparently being President of the United States, for him, is taking the easy way out?

Lovely.

But not surprising. With what? – 8 homes? 11 homes? – hell, even he doesn’t know….but yeah, it probably is hard for Republican presidential candidate John McCain to imagine the day-to-day challenges that are reality for 300,000,000+ Americans.

See-  this kind of post bothers me.  And I said as much in the comments:

And Democrats are learning to play the soundbite game as well as the Republicans. Good for them, bad for America.

To which Pogie responded:

Steve, you are one smug son of a bitch. Given that you are so much wiser and deeper that Democratic Party, its activists, its supporters, its bloggers, and everyone else, why don’t you just tell us what we should write?

Perhaps tell the American public your deep insight. If only we were all so connected with reality and possessed of your keen intellect, this nation would certainly be great once more.

This kind of surprised me, I guess.  Granted, it’s not the first time something I’ve said quickly has gotten this kind of response, but I don’t think that Don and I have ever really argued with each other.  Thus I felt the need to clarify what exactly is “bad for America”.

I don’t doubt that pitching this kind of mindless shit is necessary for the Democratic Party.  Of course, the American people encourage this kind of soundbyte politics… and the media dutifully obliges.  But God knows I don’t have to like it.  It’s disgraceful that political discourse has come down to this… that the Democratic party has to sink down to this kind of low in order to win an election.

NEWS FLASH: John McCain admits life in the Senate is a tad disconnected from the rest of the world!!!! – No… really? You’ve got to be kidding me!  How could such a blatant statement of obvious fact be uttered by anyone running for office?

Here’s what bothers me about this:  People working for the Obama campaign picked this line up – they tossed it around, decided that piling onto it would be a great PR move for them, and issued a press release full of fake indignation.  That’s the point here – They’re not genuinely pissed off about this.  Their outrage is fake – they understand the value of this line when used in a 30 second campaign ad.  And they were probably giddy as school children to hear John McCain say it.

What happens next is eerily similar to a RWCJ… left wing blogs pick up the line, and some people actually get genuinely angry.  People start obeying the unspoken marching orders.  They’re essentially told “You need to be angry about this.”  And they say, “Man, I am PISSED!! Let’s run with this!!”  Odds are, people don’t know (or care) that they’re simply being a cog in the kind of campaign machinery that keeps America as stupid as possible.

My point here:  I don’t doubt this kind of stuff is necessary.  I don’t doubt that without it, Barack Obama would lose this election by a massive margin.  It just really depresses me that we have to operate this way.  In our political climate, Barack Obama gets criticized for being too windy and not condensing his answers to questions into one or two-sentence soundbytes.  This is because Americans simply won’t pay attention if he gets too thoughtful.  It’s shameful.

You’ll never see me playing that game.  And I’m gonna get genuinely annoyed when I see it.  And if that means I’m a smug son of a bitch, I’m proud to call myself one.  I’ll take your “smug” and raise you an “elitist.”  Sue me.

In closing, let me just quote Jon Stewart, in the interview that brought down one of the worst shows ever on television:

“Stop.  Stop hurting America… You’re part of their strategies… You’re partisan – HACKS.  This is theatre.  You’re doing theatre when you should be doing debate… What you do is not honest.  What you do is partisan hackery…  This is such a great opportunity you have here, to actually get politicians off of their marketing and strategy.”

And so concludes your lecture for the day.