Headline of the day:
More proof that we have evolved ourselves into the dumbest system for electing a president in all the Americas, excepting maybe Venezuela and Antarctica.
Everybody now running for president should be fired for having too much time on their hands. Can anybody in this great and august polity of ours do anything but call each other liars, socialists and weaklings?
Michele Bachmann started her new term in Congress last January, spent the whole year running for president, quit yesterday, and now they say she may not even want to stay in Congress. When did she spend any time on the people’s business? When does anybody?
The best thing you can say about the Endless Campaign is that with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent in 2011 on hotels, SUVs, private planes, yard signs, Internet connections, attack ads, hot coffee and donuts, they’re keeping the economy going. It’s a stimulus package all its own.
It’s a shovel-ready project, that’s for sure. What does it even mean now to call someone a liar during a presidential campaign? As if it was out of the ordinary? When Mitt Romney says that Barack Obama “apologizes for America,” which he has never done, what can you call that but a lie? What else is there to call it?
And memo to news outlets: you’re no longer helping by parsing the distortions under the guise of fact-checking. Whether you call it four Pinocchios or pants on fire, you’re just giving legitimacy to the whole baloney-based system. Especially with those cutesy names.
The only really responsible editorial response to lies from candidates is to say frankly, “This candidate is not qualified to be president. He lies.” And keep saying it, if necessary, until January 20th, 2013.
The fact that this can’t happen, or that any such statements would simply be drowned out by a trillion dollars in attack ads bankrolled by unknowns, is the dumbest part of all.
From the Who2 blog:
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