I'm So Excited!

My fella, Barack, won in Ohio!

And in other breaking news:

I could put on socks this morning!
(That will make sense to other back problem sufferers)

I've been trying to stay away from the news channels and even the network news election coverage. It annoys me too much. A huge part of the nasty and vile tone that come to be accepted as normal politics by the public is the media's fault. They don't ask questions to seek information. They ask questions to have a "gotcha" moment or a nasty sound bite to run over and over and over. They are deliberately obtuse when it suits their needs and over full of righteous indignation when it also suits their needs.

Television coverage has nothing to do with reporting the news or even the facts anymore. It has become entertainment. And that is fine, I just think they should be required to acknowledge the fact (if they can recognize one) that they are not journalists, but network shills spouting a certain veiwpoint that they think will bring in the ratings.

Bill O'Reilly is the first and the worst. But others have begun to believe their own press clippings and you can watch the rhetoric expanding alongside the egos. Lou Dobbs and Keith Olberman come to mind. I used to enjoy them, they used to be somewhat honest in their presentations of their "shows". Now they have gone around the bend and are just as slanted and biased as the show-men they decry.

So I just read my news online so I can check the story from several different angles. I read the candidates on-line sites to hear what they are saying without the right/left bias their message is filtered through by the networks.
I listen to them give speeches unedited and commentator-free.

And I think that Barack Obama's message of change was supported by the people of Ohio says something. I think it says that I am not alone out here in my little corner of the world. I think it says that the American people can see right through all the little sound bites and twisting of points. I think it says that we just want the pundits to STFU and report what the candidate said, not what they -the pundit or the pundit's boss - says it means.

I'm not a starry eyed college age kid participating in my first election. I know that Obama probably won't be able to accomplish everything that he says he'd like to do to change the insider power structure of Washington DC. But he is the only one who has been saying it needs change all along. Oh, the others jumped on board when they saw it was striking a chord with the public, but it is Obama's message.

As for me, I've got hope.

Thor sez: I've gotta new toy!