You keep saying "we", when I wonder if you mean "the press".

I don't recall asking anyone for this kind of coverage - it's just what the press see fit to do. I ignore the whole damn lot and get my information from more intelligent sources, or failing that, browse the press as a whole, apply a whole lot of Actual Thinking and figure out what's really going on from the clues they scatter.

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The number of shrieking links from blogs on both sides makes me go, "We."

If we didn't respond to it, the press wouldn't do it.

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It's interesting here in England that this kind of political coverage is only just starting.

And, the blogs aren't this tokenistic about things yet, but the press has been for a little while (and is getting more like the American press day by day).

It's my belief that after x time of this, that attitude will start to set in to the public at large.

But I'm quite sure that in the beginning, it came from the press. It came from 24h news coverage, from television news coverage - that's what turned the spotlight on.

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I don't watch the debates because I don't enjoy getting irate, and there seems to be no other reason other than NASCAR'ing it, like you said. Waiting for the flaming rubble.

Reading the Rolling Stone article about McCain, I found myself going "Man, that sounds REALLY out of context" a lot. I still took some away from it as further character dubiousness for McCain, but there's at least a portion of it that just sounds like... some guy who didn't live his life expecting to be in public office.

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I had the exact same reaction. I'm like, "This is bad, but this also looks like a hatchet job." And I don't doubt that a lot of it is true, but it was so relentless.

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YES. This is something I've been trying to articulate for weeks. "Watching the President jog," heh.

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Also ... it used to be that hearing a candidate tell you about his tax plan in a debate was interesting because we didn't know it for sure. But given the internet, the constant TV coverage, and the news stations and papers, the fact is that we all know anything we could want to know about these candidates. the information is all out there, you just have to care to know. I know everything I want to know about either of them. Nothing was new, because I read it all before they went in there.

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I think the debates are boring for a few reasons.

1. I already know who I'm going to vote for and almost nothing can change my mind at this point. And that almost thing would need to be spectacular.

2. The campaigns broker to make the debates as boring as possible.

3. The townhall debates states that the people asking questions need to be undecided and representative of America. If people are undecided at this point, doesn't it make them rather politically apathetic or at best really eccentric? And the questions are screened to weed out the eccentric ones and probably the really good ones. What's wrong with letting the super-liberal grad student ask McCain a very detailed three-prong question? Same for the libertarian who reads Reason magazine asking Obama a very detailed three-prong question? Or letting someone ask a question that challenges the status quo of things?

For example, "Do you think it is necessary to get a college education in this country in order to have a chance at a middle class or better lifestyle? And if yes, do you think it is good public policy or conscionable to require most Americans to go into around 100,000 dollars in debt in order to receive said education?"

Now that would be a good question but the networks will never let it get asked as far as I can tell.

Disclaimer I did not watch the townhall last night so someone could have asked it and I missed it.

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It's the intense scrutiny that makes me reluctant to involve myself in politics. I haven't led a squeaky-clean life, and basically that would rule out cabinet positions, which takes half the fun out of it. And it does mean that we end up with quite bland people leading us, people who can stand to keep saying the same anodyne things again and again in order not to be caught out.

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God knows I'd never run. I have so many skeletons in my closet that their bones are breaking.

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Right on. Check out my post on debates if you get a chance, and tell me what you think.

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Maybe it is just my recent dating problems, but I read this and realized that we are becoming a nation of women.

Let me explain before I get strung up.

No matter what a man says, only the worst will ever be brought up in a domestic argument. Apologies and clarifications never matter, only the original statement, as you said about politicians. With the exception that if a later statement casts a previous one in a negative light, that later statement will be determined the "true feelings" of the man.

I'm not sure why this is. Maybe the proliferation of women's magazines. Maybe the whole "explore your feelings" movement. Maybe the population ratio. Maybe something as simple as the fact that women consumers are more likely to respond to advertizing, therefore just about anything driven by advertizing is more likely to target women than men. I don't know.

I just know that while reading your thoughts, I realized that I can identify with the candidates. I've been put on the spot for something I said months previous, with my words taken out of context and cherry picked to support a position I never agreed with.

Looking at the marriage of politics and media in America, I'm now seeing a dysfunctional, emotionally abusive relationship. And, like many marriages, the only way to end the fights is to make a clean break, a divorce. And the media, as the woman, gets to keep the house (influencing domestic policy), the car (influencing foreign policy), the kids (influencing voter reaction), and can go straight into a new relationship, while the politician, as the man, fades away into obscurity.

Theno

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Wow. I'm sure glad I haven't been in any of your relationships.

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No matter what a man says, only the worst will ever be brought up in a domestic argument. Apologies and clarifications never matter, only the original statement, as you said about politicians. With the exception that if a later statement casts a previous one in a negative light, that later statement will be determined the "true feelings" of the man.

I think you're taking a cultural issue and reframing it as a gender issue. Men (typically, generally, broad strokes etc.) have cut themselves off from any kind of emotional expression that doesn't involve women. (Think I'm wrong? How many times have you cried in another man's arms?) As a result, men have no emotional language to discuss these things, because they've given all their power to the women in their lives. So when they fight with those same people, they discover that, surprise surprise, their girlfriend / wife / whomever isn't interested in doing the emotional heavy lifting for them during a fight.

If you want to get back on equal footing, guess what? You have to learn to do your own emotional work, without women around. (BTW, getting together with other men and blaming all your problems in life on your mother slash wife is still bringing the ladies into the equation.) We'd love to help you out, but we pretty much can't, by definition; you have to take this one on by yourselves.

The media aren't women. The media are people who know how to speak the language of power. What's stopping you from learning to speak that language, other than your expectation that your personal female attendant should do it for you?

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Funny, I find this just as sexist as the original comment. I've had these kinds of arguments with women, and I do a lot of the emotional heavy lifting in my relationships. Implying that it just happens because men are emotionally retarded is every bit as insulting.

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Oh, it's definitely just as much of a generalization; I acknowledge that straight out, at the top of the post. Men aren't emotionally retarded, (broad strokes again), though, and I never meant to imply that they are. They're emotionally bound. Our culture reacts so very violently to the idea of a man having full access to or control over his emotions -- again, see the "crying in another man's arms" idea, and ask your male friends how many of them have done this -- that men are trained out of this from a very early age.

Is that notion sexist? It might be. But I don't find it sexist to tell a guy "If you're always having the same problem with women, maybe it's not the women who are the problem."

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If only politicians were forced to give facetime to the media, they would be given a chance to clear up their misspoken words instead of hiding behind their spokespeople. It would certainly brush up their skills when they have to address the people they lead on a daily basis. If only the media weren't made up of vultures hoping to peck at every mistake for ratings.

It is like a bad relationship in the sense that communication has broken down. But that is the fault of both parties and you pretty much lost your footing with that "we are becoming a nation of women" BS.

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Politicians are forced to give time to the media. But, the media glosses over what it wants to, and dredges up what it wants to.

A politician who looks at the issues and changes his mind over a 30 year career is flip flopping. A politician who supports A for years, but who suddenly says A is evil, is a Maverick.

It is just like the person (and, I've only ever known women to do this, YMMV) who brings up some long forgotten conversation from three to five years ago in order to support the premise that the other person in the relationship is the hurtful one.

It may be the fault of both parties, both the politician and the media. But, since the media controls what the public see and hear, then either the politician's only recourse is to go into seclusion and refuse to communicate. That only makes it worse. What needs to happen is some sort of relationship counseling, a third party organization that perhaps forces equal time, or forces the release of information the media would prefer the public not know about.

Something, perhaps, like the Internet community, forcing a separate viewpoint that isn't slanted to drive up ratings and sell advertizing space for VW and Summer's Eve. Something that opens up communication so that a politician can say, "I know that X is reporting that I said Y, but what I really meant was Y+1."

Theno

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I waited for your explanation and it has done absolutely nothing to keep me from wanting to 'string you up,' as it were. That is a deeply sexist sentiment.

What the fuck?

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"How it Works"


Replace 'math' with 'communication' and you have thenodrin's comment.

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Actually, you don't.

I am not talking about communication. I am talking about the acceptance and rejection of evidence.

I'm talking about the choice to decide that Statement A is an obvious lie, and that Statement B is an obvious truth, despite claims from the person making the statement, and in all cases using the selection to present that person in the worst possible light.

That's not really communication. That's more of a verdict, or a justified preconception.

For example, a man is doing the household budget. This man repeatedly and habitually leaves lights on overnight, falls asleep with the TV on, and runs the AC to 65 degrees. The man notices that the electric bill is in danger of interfering with his ability to play Texas Hold 'Em on Friday nights, so he makes a household declaration that it is his wife and child's responsibility to conserve energy. He is cherry picking his personal statements and glossing over his history, just as politicians do and just as the media does.

Another example, a wife and husband are arguing about the husband's brother. The brother has lost his job and his home, and has come to live with the couple until he gets his feet under him. In the course of the argument, the wife brings up an off-handed comment that the husband made five years previous when his brother was also recently unemployed that was intended to be poking fun, but taken out of context sounds hurtful and cruel. This is used to not only gain an emotional advantage over the husband, but also is screamed in the hopes that the brother overhears and questions the husband's loyalty.

Again, this is like the media taking a candidate's position on any given policy five to eight years ago and trying to use it to undermine his statements today, and to hopefully cause potential voters to question the candidate's honesty.

This isn't communication. This is accepting and rejecting history in order to cast a person in the worst possible light. It is, I suppose, character assassination on a very subtle level.

Theno

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It is communication: the media's communication to its viewership, including the ways in which it portrays politicians (unfairly or not) is mass communication. Subtle character assassination in the context of an argument in a relationship is interpersonal communication. It may be poor communication, but that doesn't render it 'not communication.'

I find it odd, to say the least, that you've chosen to defend yourself not from my accusation of sexism, but from the assertion that you're talking about communication (which is pretty neutral, and was included mostly so that I could make a joke). Unless, of course, you mean to defend yourself by the inclusion of an example in which a male exhibits the undesirable behavior, which isn't really a defense at all. Are you admitting that your sentiments are sexist?

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My statements are absolutely sexist. And, unfortunately, borne out by personal experience. I didn't see any need to defend myself, personally, and instead preferred to discuss. Again, it has been my experience that most women are going to choose to believe the worst anyway. Just like politicians know to expect the media to report how bad a person is over anything good, or any redeeming news or later clarification.

I can see how you might consider it communication, but I still disagree. Because I'm talking about the decision made by the media as to how to portray the politician, while you are talking about the communication between the media and the viewer. Yes, the communication is poor between the media and the viewer, because the media is picking and choosing what it communicates to the viewer. But, the media doesn't have to do that. And I think that the reason that politicians and other celebrities who are under the microscope of the media go to such extents to hide what they do and who they are is because they know that their statements and their actions are going to be taken apart and put back together again in a way that can be totally unrecognizable to the original context.

I think that the problem comes from a belief that "bad" = "true" and "good" = "lies". And, so the media reports what is "true" whether or not it can be substantiated. And, when it cannot, then a few sound bytes taken out of context and the right background music or voice over can put something into a different context very easily.

And, to answer your other questions, I would (and have) commented on women's tendency to assume the worst, and to twist words and bring up long dead discussions in an effort to place blame. I've asked, "Why do women do this?" and my female friends tell me that they don't know why, but that women who do act that way set a bad example and create a negative stereotype. I've asked why TV shows and movies portray women like this, and not in a bad way but even good and otherwise sympathetic female characters with this attitude. And, I've not gotten an answer, just a thoughtful "hrmmm" and a change of subject.

And, I do know people in gay, lesbian, and transgender relationships. And, even in these relationships, the whole attitude described is predominantly female. One of my gay friends told me that he doesn't date women because with a man he knows where he stands and doesn't have to worry about something taken out of context from early in the relationship coming back to bite him when he least expects it to. A friend of mine who was a drag king used to lament to me the drama that goes on backstage with women twisting words and taking comments out of context. I once worked in an office where I was the only man, and the twisting and the rumors were so bad I had to resolve myself to not talk to anyone, not look at anyone, for fear of being accused of insane things ("he had the nerve to say good morning to me, doesn't he know I'm married?")

So, again, maybe it is unfair of me to equate this behaviour with that of women. But, it has been my overwhelming experience with the members of that gender. (By "overwhelming" I am again meaning the majority, or more than half. I don't see the value in listing every woman I've ever known and categorizing them, but I am confident that there would be more in Column A than Column B."

Oh, and I never said that women were "mindlessly susceptible to media advertising." I said that I think that the news is targeting its coverage to women because its advertizements are predominantly targeted towards women. When I watch the news, I see commercials for feminine hygiene products, cleaning products, etc. all advertized by female spokesperson. I never see commercials for Iron Gym, sporting supplies, or really anything advertized by a male spokesperson. I don't know if women are "mindlessly susceptible" or not, but clearly the ads are geared to appeal to them. And, in the commercial society we live in, if the commercials are targeting one gender, then the programme usually is as well.

Theno

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That you notice many commercials targeting women might be a case of selective perception; I notice many commercials that target men (off the top of my head: there's the one with the Mach III razor where a woman in a lab coat and not much else brings the Great Razor Technology to her man. There's the Old Spice one where a centaur gets out of the shower and a woman comes along and drapes her arm about his shoulders, declaring that he is 'Two things... a man, and a provider.' There's the one for Hungry Man frozen dinners where two construction workers are drinking smoothies, go to the bathroom together and then realize [the horror!] that they're acting like girls, and resolve to feast only upon Hungry Man dinners from then on). I don't watch much TV, but I see these commercials on the Daily Show/Colbert Report websites; both of those shows have a target demographic of males in their 20s, so of course that affects the kind of advertising they employ.

It might also be that (and I don't know how old you are, and don't want to assume) things like tampons and pads have been advertised out in the open, as it were, a lot more in the last couple of decades or so than they have in the past, when menstruation was considered a more shameful and dirty thing. So there really has been an increase in the amount of menstrual product related advertising recently (but I think that's a good thing, for obvious reasons).

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As for why women conform to those stereotypes... there's a wonderful body of feminist literature on the topic, and if you're interested in reading about it I can make some recommendations. My theory, though, in a nut shell, is that it's one of those self perpetuating cycles. Women are socialized to conform to those stereotypes, and then they reinforce them by acting that way (the same thing happens to men, of course).

An example from my personal experience:

I have a friend who tends to view people in terms of their gender: he, like many people, forms stereotypes of men and women based on both his own personal experience and his experience with various media.

My boyfriend and I are at a party with this friend and another couple who recently got married. The friend teases the groom about getting 'caught' in his marriage. The groom laughs approvingly, the bride plays along. My friend and the groom turn to my boyfriend and say, "Watch out, you're next!" implying that I want to 'make' my boyfriend marry me, and he isn't interested in a commitment. This is an untrue assumption on their part; if anyone is more ready for commitment, it's him (he's older than me).

I have two options:
1. Laugh approvingly, like the married couple, and wait until the subject changes (despite how uncomfortable I am with being characterized that way). This is what is expected of me.
2. Explain that my relationship isn't like that; I'm not 'after' him, and I don't want to get him to 'commit' if he isn't ready. This is true, and it doesn't make me uncomfortable like option 1 does. But option 1 is clearly the more socially acceptable response: the joking is lighthearted, and if I take it seriously and object to the characterization of my relationship, I will be, for lack of a better term, a party pooper.

I usually choose option 1, because it's the easiest thing and I don't want to create a really awkward situation. But then my friend continues to treat me as a stereotypical woman and my boyfriend as a stereotypical man, when we're really not like that, and it annoys me. But it's my own damn fault, really, for perpetuating that stereotype, even if it's a relatively harmless one.

Now... let's look at the argument you've posed as a hypothetical. What you're talking about is clearly Bad Relationship Behavior. It's fighting dirty. As you've pointed out, even positively portrayed female characters in the media engage in it without repercussions. Just as the 'boys will be boys' attitude encourages males to continue acting in that way by excusing behavior, the portrayals you've pointed out can do the same thing to females. It's fighting dirty, and they've been told that they can get away with it, so they do it and excuse it by saying, "I'm a woman, I can't help myself."

You know what's really awesome, though? Not buying into stereotypes, no matter how often you see them play out. Because I'm starting to hate hanging out with that friend; the rest of my friends don't treat me as a Stereotypical Woman who wants to lure a man into providing for me, etc. They treat me like a human who happens to be female. They judge and predict my behavior based on my own behavior in the past, not the way other people, who happen to share some organs and chromosomes with me, have behaved. And it's incredibly refreshing to be treated that way, like an individual human rather than the sum of one person’s past experiences with my gender/race/age/sexuality/etc. I really like it. Which is why it's so frustrating to be treated differently.

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I hope you'll understand that saying sexist things is, at the very least, rude. (In addition to being unfair, as you mentioned, and also inaccurate to a large degree). The reason I feel that it is necessary to challenge the really blatant stuff, like what you said, is that there are a lot of places where saying those things is okay, and I don't want the places I visit as a guest to be like that. If theferrett's journal was full of commenters who said sexist things, I'd have to stop reading the comments, just for my own sanity's sake. And that would make me sad, because I like it here. My apologies to theferrett if I'm being overly presumptuous in attempting to modify the behavior of commenters on his journal through peer pressure, but it's either do that or sit around and tolerate it. It's like being at a party where someone tells a really offensive joke; either you can stop going to parties at that person's house, or you can say 'woah, that's really not cool' and hope that they stop doing it. If you like the parties except for that one person (or not even the person, but just that one person’s habit of telling offensive jokes), it makes sense to me to try to discourage that behavior first.

I hope I'm not coming off as one of those perpetually offended, paranoid feminists; I try not to over-analyze and misread, especially when intentions are good. But the really blatant stuff—the stuff that just reading makes my skin crawl—is kind of hard to ignore. And I don’t think it should be ignored. At the very least, I feel entitled to say, ‘hey, that’s really not cool.’

...But I’ve spent multiple comments saying that, and when it gets to the point where I have to break my comment into multiple parts just to get around the character limit, that’s usually a sign, to me, that I’m taking over someone else’s journal more than I’m really comfortable with. I could write essays on this stuff (that is, incidentally, what I should be doing right now; I have two due tomorrow, and I’ve already written more here than on those). So, if you’d like, you can email me (same username, at gmail) and we can continue this discussion, but I don't really want to keep replying here.

Thank you for remaining civil, at least, despite my at times aggressive tone. I’m passionate about being treated as an individual human, what can I say =P

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I do appreciate the discussion and I, also, have worried that I've hijacked Ferrett's journal. You did not come across to me as the perpetually offended paranoid feminist, if you had I would not have replied. Truth to tell, you originally came across to me as the guy who tells the offensive joke. That's why I originally commented on the fact that I'm not talking about communication, but about the selective memory that the media employees.

If you wish to write more on this, and post it in your journal, I will read it. You've impressed me with your ideas and statements, so I hope you don't mind that I've friended you. I may post about this in my journal. You've given me a lot to think about.

I will say that I have seen the commercials that you describe, but not during the news. I've seen them during other NBC shows like Heroes, House, and Psych over on USA. Maybe I just haven't noticed, and I need to pay closer attention? Maybe we watch different news programmes?

I like your thought that maybe women perpetuate the stereotype because it is easier than disproving it. Although there are a lot of women writers and producers in Hollywood, they are still in the minority. So, maybe that is why even positive women have these argumentative traits. I'm not sure, but you've got me thinking about it.

Theno

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Yeah, I don't mind that you've friended me =)

And yeah, I don't really watch the news (I listen to NPR/read it online more) so I'm not really aware of the ads they play on the regular nightly news programs.

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I'm not necessarily sure that's a female movement, so much as a relationshippy thing. The 1970s brought a whole bunch of accent on emotion and processing, and that's bled through into politics.

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You could be right. In my experience over half of the women that I've known either through my own relationships, my friend's relationships, or just friends who are female, have a disturbing tendency to accept anything negative as truth, and anything positive as falsehood. And, I've only ever known two men to do the same.

And, the typical stereotype portrayed in TV sitcoms and dramas is that the woman is almost always the one who gets to decide which previous actions and statements matter. This includes the programmes where the man is portrayed as a bumbling fool and the woman is the one who fixes everything at the end.

Perhaps my experience is faulty. Perhaps the stereotype is unjustified. I don't know.

I just saw a correlation between what I've perceived as a typical female argumentative tactic and the way the media has taken to portraying politicians.

Theno

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...How many relationships have you been in with women? How many relationships have you been in with men? How many of your friends date women? How many of your friends date men? If you haven't dated as many men (and thus haven't gotten into many of those types of arguments with men) and haven't befriended as many people who date men (and thus haven't had as many friends who complain to you about their male partners), you're dealing with an unbalanced sample. Even if the numbers are even, you've got a pretty small and non-objective sample (people are rarely objective about their own conduct in general, and probably especially so when they tell other people about their relationship problems) to be judging an entire gender on.

For a discussion about cherry-picking evidence and character assassination, it's pretty ironic that you've decided to characterize this phenomenon in media depictions as a problem of 'womanliness' given your personal experiences, where only 'over half' of women you know have exhibited this behavior and two men have also acted in such a way.

Would you say these things in front of the women in your life who are your counter-examples for this behavior? Would you tell them that they are part of a gender that feels rather than thinks, that is mindlessly susceptible to media advertising, that interacts with men in a parasitic fashion? Because that's what your original comment said, and, by identifying the problem as one of an increasingly 'womanly' society, you said it about all women. Would you expect them to somehow not be insulted?

At any rate, as far as my personal experience goes, I've seen people of all genders act in the unbecoming ways that you've described. It's not a gender thing. It's a human thing.

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I've never understood why men allow all the commercials to depict them as mindless tools, while the women smirk and show them how to really fix the problem. My men friends look at me quizzically and shrug. They say hey, who cares? I'm usually getting a beer or fast-forwarding. I myself avoid purchasing products that makes men look like morons, but I'm apparently in the minority.

Meanwhile, like it or not, it's women who do most of the shopping, and advertisers would be committing marketing suicide not to target their ads toward those whom they know will be their buyers.

Maybe the sitcoms are the same way. Guys are probably watching sports. Is that sexism? I prefer to call it reality.

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You know, they used to watch Truman when he walked, but that was because they were hoping he'd say something pithy.

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To be fair, his body language in the first debate sucked, and he's really gone out of his way to avoid him entirely.

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I agree completely.

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I'm not really into jumping on minor gaffes, but I have been rather hoping McCain loses his temper on camera. That would matter. Plus, it's great political theater. This is my superbowl, really. Yay debate parties!

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I want someone to bring Vietnamese people out on stage to see if we can get him to flash back during the debates.

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I agree with you about 70% on this post, but there are a couple of points.

1) It seems like lately, it's not really the things you say as much as the things you do that kill a career. Larry Craig? Done. Ted Stevens? Done. But Howard "Giddy Up" Dean? Phil "Nation of Whiners" Gramm? They're still active in their parties - they just lost speaking roles.

2) It also comes down to how it plays with your party. Both candidates have had their brainless/tactless moments - McCain had "Bomb-bomb Iran" (among others), Obama had "Cling to their guns and religion" - but I'd be willing to bet that the base on both sides privately thought, "I kinda agree with that." It's far less fatal if you say dumb stuff your supporters agree with; political correctness is mostly for the benefit of the other side.

3) Follow-ups are ignored in part because of partisanship, but also because they're usually transparent ass-covering. Suppose a candidate said, "I like children...for breakfast." Unless he had been talking about a tea-party, I'd assume that he actually consumes children. Any other person would have naturally said "over for breakfast." Thus, all subsequent discussion of how he loves children, how children are our future, how he just made a substantial donation to an orphanage, just smells like a cover-up for his secret dietary needs.

Although Bush, the junior, has done a great job of showing both how important and unimportant a president really is, I think the Presidential cult of personality has done a disservice to the public. Ultimately, the president is a decision guy, not an idea guy. On policy, what matters is the people the presidents surround themselves with, the advisers who gather information and frame the options. I want to hear more from them. A debate between Henry Paulson and Warren Buffett? Now there's something worth watching.

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I see your point. And what I say next is not actually disagreeing with you, to my mind, because your point remains valid. And I think (hope) I don't give much creedence to whatever the media is hyping all out of proportion that any one of them says, unless as you say it's a pattern. But. . . . :-) Fairly or unfairly, I personally want someone as president who's waaaay better than me, or The Average Bear. S/he can make all the gaffs and misstatement s/he wants in private, but in debate, or in front of those ever circling cameras, I want them to be able to take the heat (or get out of the kitchen), think on their feet and not out of their arses, and be clear about what they mean vis-a-vis the topic. It IS a high pressure, unrelenting job, and if they can't . . . or if the misstatement really IS a Freudian Slip about their inner souls they didn't mean for us to see. . . . I'd rather know it.

Even if I didn't know the differences in policy perspectives, I would have come to dislike McCain and Palin because of the way they behave. The lies delivered with dripping snideness. It's not just about a popularity contest: being RESPECTED as well as well liked is part of the job. Most of what I see from the GOP is unbecoming any person seeking that office. It's Jerry Springer lite. I started out liking Hillary and she lost me for that same reason. It's an embarrassment.

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icewolf010 referred to this post on her LJ. I read it; I gotta say, "watching the President jog" is a fine first point... but it's the backup stuff at the end that got me to add you as a friend.

Sounds like you've thought a few extra moves ahead. I hold on to people like that like grim death.

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Part of the problem is also that while the press is circling like vultures waiting for candidate John Doe (because really they'll take whatever they can get) to slip up, most of the candidates will periodically if not regularly lie to our faces when they're not slipping up. Too bad we can't live in a world where people just, you know, tell the truth...

to the moment they go to bed at night, they're surrounded by cell phone camera, videorecorders, and all sorts of recording devices.

Which begs the question: how long before we have a legit presidential sex tape circulating on the internet?

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It's not the voters who fixate on the little BS gaffes, it's the press. They tell us they don't report on substantive issues because the public don't want to hear it, but really it's because the press themselves are too stupid to understand the issues and too lazy to research and report them accurately.

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