TANGENTS By John Saccenti Is there no end in sight?
I had a really great idea for a column this week. I had planned on laying out my qualifications for president, and then asking, tongue-in cheek, for your vote.
But something happened on the way to the keyboard. I got tired, not physically, but emotionally, and I’m finding it hard to care about the presidential election, and even harder to make fun of it.
Just six months ago I would have cranked the column out in a few minutes, excitement flowing through my veins and giddy with the prospect of lampooning both presidential candidates.
But now, well, I just can’t take it any more. The "he said, she said" tenor of the presidential election this year has grinded me down, and frankly, I’m just not feeling it.
I blame it on all the gotcha journalism, all the photo ops, all the mindless sound bytes and over analysis of meaningless tid-bits. It’s bored its way into my brain, destroyed my ability to care and brought the presidential election down to the level of Scott Peterson trial coverage.
It used to be that I’d watch the news to learn about a candidate, where they stand. Sure, there’s always been partisanship and selling points, but at least you could hear a message underneath the din of politicking.
But these days, it’s hard to watch campaign coverage without feeling dirty afterward, or walking away angry at anyone who doesn’t agree with you.
What passes for campaign coverage these days and it’s only gotten worse as we near Nov. 2 is paid operatives telling us why their man should sit in the Oval Office, and why a vote for the other guy is a vote against your mom, America and apple pie.
Luckily, the "journalists" who question these guys typically have a mouthpiece from both parties present during debates, that way we get twice as much useless information, and they get to pretend they are being fair.
Now I’m not claiming to be the world’s greatest journalist. But, even I know that getting talking points faxed by the DNC or GOP, and rephrasing them into questions aimed at the very people who may have written them is questionable behavior.
Yet, that’s what happens every night.
If that weren’t the case, would we really have spent a week hearing about the very important, and hard hitting, late breaking news of Teresa Heinz Kerry’s quote about Laura Bush not ever having a real job, or blasting Sen. Kerry about bringing up Vice President Dick Cheney’s lesbian daughter?
It’s that attitude, prevalent throughout the rest of the year, which seems to have taken over. And it’s all accompanied with enough looks of "I’m doing the world a service by asking these tough questions" and feelings of victimization that many of us buy into it, or cheer them on.
Cheer you say? Yes, cheer. Isn’t it interesting that what has been billed as the most important presidential election in ages has been dumbed down to the level of pre-game coverage of NFL tailgate parties, complete with "analysis" shot in front of groups of screaming fans, many of whom are holding up signs urging their team to victory.
Others have painted their faces, or put on dumb T-shirts, two things I’m sure Sen. John Kerry and President George W. Bush draw energy from. I wonder if they’ll do the wave next or riot when their candidate wins the big game.
I suspect that most of these people are simply caught up in the moment, like many nonbaseball fans in Boston now find themselves caught up in America’s favorite pastime, and will stop caring once the election is over.
Making matters even more tiresome is that many news outlets have started covering what will happen after the election, when teams of lawyers are expected to challenge results throughout the country. Some even speculate that this year’s election already is in doubt, and that election 2000 is just an appetizer to the lawsuits and wrangling that will follow in the next few weeks.
I’d talk about the overanalysis of polls, and people’s need to know who’s winning, but frankly, I’m afraid I might scare you into not caring either.
Fortunately, I think I’ve made up my mind. Well, I hope I did, because I’m certainly not going to learn anything new about the candidates in the next few weeks for the record, I’m not too fond of either. Can someone say irresponsibly manipulative?
And since I don’t have the energy to try and sift through the nonsense, I certainly don’t have the energy to make fun of the candidates either, so you’re getting this rant.
It might not be funny, but at least it has an ending, unlike this election.
John Saccenti is news editor for the South Brunswick Post and The Cranbury Press. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].