Ya know what? I don’t think that getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down in and of itself qualifies anyone to be president either. I’m of the opinion that one’s shoddy service in the Air National Guard, barely limping through one’s tour, possibly going AWOL, drinking and snorting your way through to the end while your cohort fights and dies halfway around the world is a far superior benchmark of judgment and true grit. Haven’t we learned anything from the last 7 years?

Also, a little note to the media: up yours. Take your collective faces out of McCain’s taint long enough to do your fucking jobs. With a press corp like this, it’s amazing that we’re not already irrigating our fields with Gatorade.

[Update]: An astute commenter takes Joe Klein to task for his tut-tutting at Time’s Swampland, and notes:

Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham was a vastly superior fighter pilot in Vietnam than John McCain becoming the first Ace of the war.

Where is Duke Cunningham right now? Sitting in prison for taking bribes as a congressman.

George H. W. Bush was trained as a pilot, was shot down and then had a largely ineffective presidency.

George W. Bush was trained as a jet fighter pilot and he’s the consensus choice for the most incompetent president in American history.

Seems to me that being a fighter pilot ain’t such a great thing to put on your resume these days, eh? Perhaps some intrepid reporter will note these facts. Yeah, no I don’t think so either.

[Update Again]: Wes Clark isn’t going to back off, renounce, denounce, or reject a got-damn thing. Broadcast punditude, go ahead and invite him on your show to talk about it, but don’t be surprised if you get more than you bargained for. He’s whip smart, he’s got some service experience of his own, and he ain’t rollin’ over. Democratic leadership, please take notes as this unfolds, this is how it’s done. Take special note of the exceptional display of conviction, confidence, and spine.

[Update Yet Again]: In case there’s any confusion about what it means to attack someone’s service record:

• Wes Clark stated that McCain’s service was exemplary, and stated unequivocally that McCain was a hero. He then stated that McCain’s military experience, in particular flying an aircraft and being shot down, does not necessarily qualify him to handle presidential foreign policy decisions. Got that so far?
• Here’s McCain surrogate, on the other hand, saying on a conference call with the press:
  

  …we all know that General Clark, as high-ranking as he is, his record in his last command I think was somewhat less than stellar.

That’s what it looks like when someone attacks and demeans someone else’s service record.

So, to review: Wes Clark’s comments bring up a point of discussion, about what actually qualifies someone to be president, and argues that even exemplary, heroic military service by itself doesn’t cover all the bases. McCain’s surrogate trashing General Clark’s service as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO is just flinging shit at a political opponent.

What in the hell do people actually do at journalism school?

It’s George Carlin Week for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people, and I’m one of them. As I strolled the halls of YouTube gathering bits and pieces of old performances to savor and be grateful for, I ran across this one. Let’s enjoy a little bit of the master, and then talk about it after, shall we?

That is some nutrient-dense food for thought there, isn’t it? So why’s this commanding any more of my attention than any other particular 4 minutes of Professor Carlin’s insights?

It’s partly because I’m having a difficult time reconciling my optimism and excitement over the potential tectonic shift that an Obama presidency could affect in American politics with my bitter disappointment that only Senators Feingold and Dodd seem to give enough of a shit about the Constitution to stand on the floor of the Senate and fight like hell to stop this ass barnacle of a FISA bill. It’s depressing and disconcerting to watch so many Democrats cave on this issue. I mean, shit, there’s not even a significant political upside to giving the telecoms and the Bush administration a pass. The American people had their Constitutional rights systematically violated by Bush and the telcos, by some accounts as many as 7 months before 9/11, which sure seems like something that sits pretty squarely on the bad side of a bright line.

I also know that this would be a non-starter if our Senators knew for a fact that the American people wouldn’t stand for it. But the only real resistance is coming from a small (yet very vocal and surprisingly effective) minority of citizens who pay close enough attention to know what this fight’s about. If we thought of ourselves as citizens responsible for our government instead of consumers entitled to crazy low prices, or an audience craving entertainment, this wouldn’t be happening. But it is.

To put it another way, James Inhofe didn’t get to the Senate by accident. He is Oklahoma. To put it yet another way, we got an administration run by 4 year olds because we wanted it, and we got it good and hard.

The other chord this bit strikes in me relates to a conversation I had with someone about the late Tim Russert. I was chatting with a woman at a toddler birthday party last weekend, a D.C. local whose family has been involved in liberal Democratic politics for years and years. In the course of our discussion, she brought up that she was pretty broken up about Tim Russert, and what a great journalist she thought he was. I replied that, with respect, I wasn’t a fan of his “gotcha” style interview, and that I didn’t think much of him as a journalist after his testimony at the Libby trial, in which he admitted that discussions with government officials were off the record unless they said they wanted to be on the record. I also brought up the Mary Matalin note from Scooter Libby’s trial where she claimed that the best way for Cheney to get his message out and control it was to go on Meet The Press.

She gave a standard sort of apology for this kind of journalism, saying that they all do that, otherwise they lose their access to those officials. I countered that real journalists, like Sy Hersh for example, don’t need or want that kind of access, that real journalism is the result of doing real investigation. Tim Russert, I concluded, was a member of the court, and was primarily a performer.

This woman then gave me a knowing kind of smile, and remarked to me how great she thought it was that I’m so idealistic about journalism. I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if she’d pinched my fucking cheeks. And this was coming from a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat.

So there it is, garbage in, garbage out. If 95% of the American public doesn’t know anything about the fight over the FISA bill, then their Reps and Senators will pay no penalty for not caring about it either. Garbage in, garbage out. If the ones who do know something about it just don’t think that telcos sharing private information about our communications with an illegal government spying program is that big of a deal, then why would our elected officials oppose it? Garbage in, garbage out.

And though I miss the full hour, commercial free McNeil/Lehrer Report on PBS, I can’t blame any organization for its demise. They simply got out-competed by a trend toward celebrity journalism that’s seeped into every aspect of our media. There was no cabal that killed real broadcast journalism, we did that. One of the aspects of the whole open-society, free-market of ideas thing is that it’s up to us whether we want real analysis and policy discussions, or a dazzling theatrical performance with romance, fireworks, and buffoonery. We’ve chosen to be entertained, and both the performers and the audience are us.

So the next time you see one of those factoids about how we’re falling behind the the rest of the developed world in education, civil rights, and quality of life, remember this. Our government is made of us. Our media is made of us. And we suck.

Note: I’ve made several little edits for grammar and clarity. I suck too.

Issues I care about heading into this year’s elections*

• Protecting the Constitution, and making sure that those we entrust with power and authority to take care of our business don’t have the inclination or opportunity to abuse that trust.
• Iraq. Iraq. Iraq. Over 4300 American troops killed, tens of thousands profoundly wounded, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed. A billion and a half dollars a day. Another 6 months? A year? Ten? A hundred? Another 4300 deaths? 43,000? Another trillion dollars? More? Hey, is anyone keeping an eye on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border region?
• The horrible reality that we’ve crossed a bright line, and we’re now a country that disappears people and tortures them to death. We have to do more than just bringing that to an end, we have to atone.
• The scarcity of the planet’s remaining resources, the continuing overabundance of humans, and how we (both as a nation and as a species) will feed, clothe, transport and employ ourselves after cheap, easy oil.
• The possibility that our children, and perhaps our grandchildren, will be endlessly fighting wars in countries all over the world over those scarce resources.
• The fact that our Government is still, more than two years later, unable to do a fucking thing to adequately help new Orleans, a major American city, rebuild after being devastated by a hurricane.
• The possibility that the Middle Class American Dream of a decent home in a decent city with decent schools may become unattainable for most of us.
• The frightening possibility of someone in my family having a serious medical problem, either that it would ruin us, or (more terrifying) that we may be refused treatment.
• A host of other issues relating to my family’s welfare, our nation’s viability as a free and democratic republic, and to our survival as a species.

Issues political journalists and pundits care about**

• Low bowling scores.
• Orange juice instead of coffee.
• The controversial use of the words “frustrated” and “bitter” to describe people’s… frustration and bitterness.
• Troubling displays of “elitism” and “condescension” towards “real Americans” (whatever those terms mean to television media stars with multi-million dollar salaries who live in New York, D.C., and Los Angeles).
• Any celebrity gossip or vicious rumor that gets Drudge’s red light flashing.
• What others in the Consultant Class of the D.C. Establishment thinks about the above points, and what they think about what other consultants and pundits think about them.

Of course, both lists are incomplete. But each is a fair representation. And I think that my list, though incomplete, pretty well illustrates what I believe is at stake in this election (and likely for every election to follow in my lifetime). And notice, curiously, all the things in the first section mean as much to the Pundit Class as the things in the second section mean to me. So, what do I think of Political Journalism in America?

I think that it would be a very, very good idea.

* I’m know I’m not alone in prioritizing these issues, many many folks do. But I don’t presume to speak for the American electorate.

** These absurd, presumptuous assholes, however, are under the illusion that they’re qualified to speak for the American electorate (or Real America™ as they refer to it).