One of the things that made me get my act together and revamp my web site was the 2008 election season. Specifically, John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin for his running mate.
At the time, I was just frustrated with the traditional media giving her so much credit for “fighting the bridge to nowhere“, like she was Eko facing down the black smoke in “The 23rd Psalm” or something. Wow, what courage it must have taken to rise in opposition to a batshit crazy Senator (who nonetheless was third in the line of succession for four years) who proposed one of the more egregious earmarks in recent memory.
In retrospect, it seems like I wasn’t nearly skeptical and frustrated enough. What a trainwreck this has turned out to be.
And while ordinarily I would clap my hands excitedly at watching Republicans on the receiving end of traditional media “scrutiny” for a while (such as it is), this sideshow is having the unfortunate effect of distracting from another incredible convention speech by Barack Obama.
At least I can take comfort in the fact that it was watched by (at a minimum) 40 million people.
I don’t have much patience for watching any of the pundits on cable news, whether they’re the nutbars on Fox News or the bloviators on MSNBC. And the bottomless pit of negative energy on most right-wing blogs keeps me away. So I haven’t had much opportunity for honest discussion with Republicans in, like, three years.
Now I wish I could, just to find out what they’re thinking now. I mean, even the most generous polls for Obama still have McCain hovering around the 40% mark. 40%! That just blows my mind. I guess we have a lot of work to do in the next two months, to convince people that Ol’ Mr. 29% is not 11% better than McCain.
I am not optimistic.
