Media's end

Is there any way to keep up with the jaw-dropping mix of bias, arrogance, adulterated junk food, and obtuse stupidity that the American news media has on display for us this election year? Bloggers, talk-show hosts, and others who are about to replace the American news industry struggle to come up with the words that will, in effect, form its epitaph.

The recent flap over Sarah Palin's ABC interview with Charles Gibson has even sympathetic media observers agog. Just pick a random blog in the blogroll to the right and look. Start with Mary Madigan comparing the raw and doctored interviews, and finish up with this classic Simpsons clip (requires WMP 11 or IE7). Like the indispensable Onion, only parody can now do justice to the schlock, "advocacy," and strutting, vicious pretense -- both cutthroat and petty -- that make up so much of our so-called "news."

The core problem here is that Palin, limited as her political experience is, is smart, as well as direct and plain-spoken. Her mere existence highlights the phoniness of liberal and "progressive" politics. Her limited but real accomplishments in Alaska underscore, every time those intolerable boobs on MSNBC open their mouths, the empty hype and puffery of the Obama campaign.

So media-land is in a tizzy. I don't take polls that seriously, but one poll and survey after another in the last decade has indicated that a large swath of the voting public knows what they're seeing and reading and are willing to say so. Some of these polls indicate that even a majority of self-described liberals now admit that the media is biased junk. And there's no mystery as to the nature of that bias.

In all likelihood, this election cycle will be the last in which the conventional news media has a dominant role in "reporting" and shaping the outcome. The media's credibility and prestige have been eroding for 25 or more years. But few foresaw the stunning speed of collapse we're now watching.

Are you experienced?

PRE-POSTSCRIPT: Oh, and how could I forget Juno? The movie's director talks here about life imitating art imitating life imitating art ....
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One of the most remarkable things about American society today is how long it takes the average middle or upper-middle class person to mature into adulthood.

I was comparing notes with a friend about Obama and Palin versus JFK at the same point in his life, and several large facts struck both of us. When JFK ran for president in 1960, he had been in Congress for 14 years and had served in the Navy four years before that, a total of 18 years of public service. Obama is frequently compared to JFK, but honestly, there is no comparison: Obama is man of manifest talent and no achievement. Only the media's relentless promotion of him has obscured this and the fact that he's lost without coaching and teleprompter. He's the perfect icon for the entitlement mentality. Even Palin, limited as her political career has been, has more on her resumé.

Part of the explanation is that everyone's living longer today and the Boomers and their immediate predecessors, the Depression-war babies, fill and will remain in positions of importance for many years to come. That means advancement for anyone under, say, 50 is harder than it was in JFK's day.

But today's American society, and the Western world in general, is also set up to make adulthood harder than it once was. Adolescence was once a prologue to adulthood. Today, adulthood is a prolongation of adolescence.

.... But not for Bristol Palin, obviously eager to jump into adulthood a little too early. An object lesson for the way we infantilize, not only adults, but late teens on the verge of adulthood. What they need is, not infantilization, but as much responsibility as they can handle, along with a little adult supervision. Without adult responsibility handed to them, the pluckier and more risk-tolerant will seek it out themselves, whether they know what they're getting into or not.

POSTSCRIPT: Bless her heart, Megan McArdle has two very sensible postings (here and here) about the women of the Palin household. (I count Bristol as an adult.)

Shaken up

And I mean in a good way -- congratulations to Alaska governor Sarah Palin on being tapped as McCain's VP nominee. I didn't think John-John had it in him: he's hit not just a home run, but a home run out of the park.

We've been out of the political loop here at Kavanna for the last month or so, busy with many of life's pressing things. I've been meaning to blog for some time on the changing dynamics of American politics and what's gone wrong with the Republican party, and I will soon. (See here for my earlier thoughts.)

Suffice it for now to say that, with Palin on the ticket and the credibility she brings on the "shrink-bloated-corrupt-big-government" front, McCain has now massively confirmed his earlier, tentative push to break the Republicans out of their self-imposed ghetto. They spent ten years building a prison for themselves out of partisan hysteria and attempts to awe and buy off voters with ever more lavish activist big government. But they found instead that they had only alienated larger and larger swaths of the electorate. Except for 2002, it's placed a steepening cost on them in every election since 1998 and now threatens the party's and country's future.

McCain has his core domestic theme down: run against Congress, and don't be partisan about it. The era of Bush, Rove, and braindead loyalty is thankfully over.

Not bad for a guy with an enlarged prostate :)

POSTSCRIPT: Sissy Willis is also happy: "It's a girl!" No confirmation yet on the HRC suicide watch! ;-D

POST-POSTSCRIPT: And progress on closing the "supermodel gap"?