Reductio

Make my funk the P-Funk!

Click image for full Matt Bors cartoon.

Missing the story

CNN reports that, ho hum, the Sarah Palin resignation circus left 70% of voters with the same opinion of her:

"Many Americans have deeply-held opinions about Palin as a result of the national campaign in 2008," says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

Well, duh. Of course this is true. She's the most over-exposed media personality this side of the Michael Jackson funeral circus. (I guess there was a two-for-one special in burials this week.)

But Holland misses the point of his own poll. After ten months of intense coverage, Sarah being Sarah and trying incoherently and vacuously to explain her flight from office as something noble and self-sacrificing led 30% of voters to reconsider their opinions.

A poll that focused on that third of the electorate would have been much more interesting. Did they buy her pity party or not? Alas, CNN didn't ask and can't tell, although the totals suggest they didn't.

(As a matter of craven political self-interest, I'd also like to understand the 17% of so-called Democrats who would support Palin. Who the hell are they?)

Culture of hype

When the death of Billy Mays can lead CNN.com, you have to know that our culture has lost its way into inconsequential worship of D-grade celebrity. Mays may have been a great guy, but his cultural value as a penny-ante, grating, shouting cable TV pitchman for crappy overrated products was a net negative.

I only wanted Mays off my television, not dead, but god, is this what we've come to? At least Michael Jackson had real, honest-to-god talent to accompany his transcendent weirdness.