Friday, September 5, 2008

Media hero worship

Can we stop the hero-worship?

Nobody doubts he's a hero, as the many tributes throughout the convention were meant to highlight...
John McCain hasn't done anything heroic in the last thirty-five years. What he did in North Vietnam to resist the despicable war criminals who tortured him was tremendous. Yes, the communists broke him, but everyone breaks in time, and the way he broke was honorable.

I have no desire to swiftboat John McCain, although Duhbya showed in 2000 that it would be possible. But I'm not even close to that slimy.

Many other men suffered the same fate in hellish North Vietnamese prisons, and they're not entitled by it to the Presidency either. To our thanks and our respect and our honor and even our amazement, but not to the highest office in the land.

The grievous error of letting the media suck us into a Republican narrative centered on a manufactured image of personality has caused tremendous problems for the past three decades. Even the media and the Republican Party acknowledge that they have no plans other than more of the same, that they can only run on personal traits. Haven't we had enough of that fraud?

Bill Schneider hits many apt points, including this:
His answers seemed very much part of the past: cut spending, cut taxes.
Yet he is still summing up this way:
If voters are choosing between two men, they will probably choose McCain. If they're choosing between two policies, I think Obama has the edge: His are newer, smarter and fresher.
The only explanation I can venture as a guess: Schneider doesn't want to ruin his friendship with McCain. That would be journalistic malpractice if true. If not true, it's far too often true in our media.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is nothing "new and fresh" about socialism. Taking from those that EARNED it to give to those that didn't isn't prosperity. Gov't never creates prosperity, INDIVIDUALS do. Obama has convinced his idiot followers that the opposite is true. Fortunately, those of us that are not angry that there are folks that have more than us understand ECONOMICS and will never vote for th socialist (well, he's actually a communist) Obama. But I think the majority (those that vote who AREN'T at home waiting on their welfare check) of EDUCATED folks will prevail and McCain will be the next Pres. Go Sarah- she'll be Pres in 2012.

lovable liberal said...

Again, you don't even attempt to rebut any of my statements. You just regurgitate Limbaugh's talking points. You do know that Rush is a drug-addled dope, don't you?

You really should learn the meaning of words before you use them. Communist? You have no idea. Go try Wikipedia; I'm sure they have a definition that's better than the fog rolling around what you call your brain.

How many Nobel Prize-winners taught you economics? What you understand about the subject could be summed up by your bank account.

You don't even understand what I think about economics, much less what economists think.

Here's a question for you: How much of the Federal budget is spent on welfare payments to able-bodied men who won't work? You don't have to give a dollar amount. Is it more than 10% of the budget, about 10%, 1%, 0.1%, or less?

The truth is you don't know much of anything, and most of what you're certain about is wrong.