Rob Stops Watching Political Coverage
I feel like I am inside the middle of a bad daytime soap opera. Clearly these things I see happening can’t be real and yet I feel helpless to remove myself from this quagmire. The writers obviously don’t understand: they keep coming up with scripts that are mind bogglingly inane. It started with Sarah Palin’s responses to Charles Gibson when asked about the Bush Doctorine.
“What part are you talkin’ about, Charlie?” she asked.
And then continued with Joe the Plumber and John McCains’s comment that Joe was his “role model” and that should he win, McCain would be taking Joe the Plumber with him to Washington. You bet Big Mac! And what exactly would Joe’s role be? Secretary of Pipes and Faucets? I gave serious thought at that point to changing the name of my URL to www.robthefoodcritic.com. I mean, surely McCain could use a secretary of restaurant criticism?
It escalated with Joe Biden’s monstrous gaffe about how Barack Obama would be “tested” by some heinous international terrorist within six months of assuming office. This was so juicy that McCain instantly turned it into an ad against Obama.
Then finally, it culminated Sunday with Fred Thompson, a man who has vacillated between the two most interchangeable public positions, acting and politics. Speaking with Tom Brokaw on Meet the Press, Thompson in defense of Sarah Palin’s interview with Charles Gibson, said “she clearly knew more about the Bush Doctrine than her interviewer!” Fred must have thought he was till doing his hard-ass DA role from Law and Order! Say the most stupid thing in the world, act like you believe it, and hope for the best. I think George Will defined it best as “irrational exurberance.”
I turned off the television at that point. Closed up my lap top. Thank God NFL football was on. I swear to God I will not watch another moment of political coverage until the election is over. I am completely burned out. TMI as my daughters would say. If I don’t see another Cable News Channel pundit or talking head for the rest of my life I would be blissfully happy. And as for Pat Buchanan. Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity, I can only say they should both be ecstatic that they have jobs on television. I cannot imagine any other place where these bombastic, self-important, delusional airheads could be employable.
As for me, I’m gong to convene a meeting with that lovable group of losers: G. Gordon Liddy, Billy Ayers, Jeramiah Wright, Charles Keating, Barack Obama’s aunt, Ted Stevens (who will probably regain his Alaskan senate seat despite his recent convictions) and anyone else whose name was dragged through the muck of this most bizarre three months. I mean why not? I’ve always wanted to know how Liddy did that hand-over-the-candle flame bit anyway.
