JOLLY DAYS

Post VP Debate Thoughts

There is a kind of horrified fascination about the campaign now. The future festooned with threats and doubts making the politicians smaller than the moment. They almost disappear in the shadows.

Palin did great in her debate. I felt glad for her. Public ridicule should be saved for malefactors. Biden, a likable competent politician, also did fine. He is a bore who doesn't put you off.

The election process has been from the outset celebrity cults at war. Obama, the newcomer, and his delighted with themselves supporters; McCain, the war hero, with his drill baby drill brigades. At no point did you feel issues were at stake, just a dislike of Bush, a choice of personalities, and a doubt either would do much of anything.

The country has gotten used to shallowness, personality, coarsened judgments — the latter a specialty of the media. The race for president feels more like a casting call than an assessment of judgment, character and understanding. All tactics, which the press is fully entranced by and probably explains its centrality. You would think the press wished to be campaign managers rather than reporters.

I've come to think the real casualty of the election will be the credibility and personal honor of the media. Some would laugh at personal honor mentioned in this context, but there are many reporters who are honorable. However, their smug and ponderous pronouncements in this election; their attempt to skew and slant and whisper their voice-over prejudice has betrayed them. In scanning some of the commentary one of the networks had a big Nielsen logo in the corner of the screen and a group of putative independent voters; the outcome was that Biden won big time. Then the reporter said that the group was “leaning towards Obama”. The pics and charts said big win Biden, the text, that the segment was a farce. The celebrity cult most easy to deplore: the press itself.

Obama has been more obnoxious in his affection for cult status. McCain, talking too much about his past, admirable as much of it has been, too little focused on the narrative of concerns, or anything else. All they both want is to win.

Well, Palin's success won't do much for McCain. Biden's workmanlike performance won't change things either.

The tangle of the issues facing the country brings to mind David Foster Wallace about the complexities of modern life:

We live today in a world where most of the really important developments in everything from math and physics and astronomy to public policy and psychology and classical music are so extremely abstract and technically complex and context-dependent that it’s next to impossible for the ordinary citizen to feel that they (the developments) have much relevance to her actual life. Where even people in two closely related sub-sub-specialties have a hard time communicating with each other because their respective s-s-s’s require so much special training and knowledge.