Sorry for the political rant here

I've slowly...slowly...started to ween myself off of politics/news, mainly because it was affecting my blood pressure. First it started with swearing off cable news and now I'm starting to ween myself on newspapers, even the NY Times and what not (I gave up on HuffPo weeks ago). Right now, I'm mainly getting my political news from either Talking Points Memo, Wonkette and Oh No They Didn't (they're reporting on the Rihanna/Chris Brown issue has been spectacular) and I feel better. Now if you're wondering why I'm not reading much in the way of politics right now, it's because I don't think I can stand to see anymore of these total pieces of bullshit masquerading as political reporting.

1)"It's time for Obama to be the leader we voted for"

What the fuck does that mean? How does one be that kind of leader? What do they think, that Obama can come walk to Capital Hill and dictate laws and bills like Moses giving everyone the Ten Commandments? "I present to you...a robust public option!" Should he give more speeches or act more like a parent talking to a whiny kid- "okay, if you don't pass health care without a public option, I'm going to send you all to bed without getting supper." Give Evan Bayh a mickey and have him "wake up" in a bed full of hookers and then blackmail him? Have you seen the Senate? Senators are nothing but a bunch of preening, attention whoring divas. And because the Republicans are filibustering everything, you need 60 votes to pass anything and there's no way you can get 60 Democratic Senators to even come together to pass a bill in praise of puppies. Lieberman himself would gaze lovingly in John McCain's eyes, threaten to filibuster the puppy bill, and then go on twenty political talk shows to talk about how awesome he is for being "so independent." Seriously, I bet Lieberman tapes himself on Sunday talk shows and watches them at night while he masturbates.

Which brings us too...

2)"Obama needs to stop being so bipartisan..."

Okay, the stimulus bill was probably watered down a bit to be "bipartisan" but that being said, it still took some serious watering down the watering down to get the 60 votes. But....see above about trying to get 60. If you have to take Olympia Snowe out, buy her a whole new wardrobe, give her free tickets to a Broadway show, and have some Norwegian dude named Hans to give her a months worth of free massages, you probably have to.


3)"Blah blah blah is a serious problem. Obama has to do something about it"

The first version of this column is something along the lines of "FlashForward started off decently but has progressively sucked since then. Obama has to do something about it." It's the relatively small, non-essential issue that a certain segment of people find important (and is important) but isn't really that big of a deal considering all the amazing amounts of crap we have to deal with. Unfortunately, everybody out there has kind of expected Obama to fix every thing in the world in the nine months or so he's been President so I'm seeing a lot of "I gave hundreds of dollars to Obama's campaign and he has yet to do anything about my downstairs neighbors drunkenly fighting all night. That's not the change I believed in!" comments posted on message boards

And then there's the second version of this story, the one that actually involves a real, serious issue. In today's NY Times, there's a column by somebody titled something like "Unemployment is a serious problem. Obama has to figure out something to do about it." It's like "Oh, really?" Do you not think the administration is concerned about unemployment? Are they sitting around thinking "eh, what's 10% unemployment? if you look at it another way, that means we have 90% employment!" And thank you for telling me that this is an important issue. I didn't realize 10% unemployment was that big of a deal.

And while sometimes the column is just 100 words of beating something totally obvious over the readers head, some columnist/pundits (most of whom has absolutely no expertise or knowledge in any of this) have a solution to this incredibly complicated, fucked up issue, which brings us to....

4)"Unless Obama does blah blah blah, dogs and cats will live together!"

There's several thousands of political reporters out there. And on top of that, several thousand political bloggers, each having about 100 or so commenters all with their own opinion of just what Obama should do. And every one of these people are completely and absolutely sure that they know exactly what needs to be done and if Obama doesn't do exactly everything they say, we're doomed.

And that brings us to the dual nature of punditry

5)"Obama is doing too much"

This will then be followed by a list of the things he should be focused on-- an often long, lengthy, and complicated list. Usually not mentioned in this list are anything that could help people who don't own beautiful condos in DC and estates in Virgina (see health care)

6)"Obama isn't doing enough"

Often written by the very same pundit who said the above thing about a week ago

7)"Obama proposed/passed/did this. This could be good news for the Republicans"
This story, basically one big fluffy hedge, is so common I wonder if there's a giant macro out there for pundits/columnists to write this story. Then, they go in and change the issue in question, plug in some new quotes by the same people they always get quotes from, and quickly have their agent get them booked on CNN

But sometimes those types of stories seem too weak, so for the past several years, I've been seeing this:

8)"Obama proposed/passed/did this. This is a win for Republicans"

See the Politico or the Note. It's actually a running joke on lefty blogs where whenever something good happens to Obama, somebody will say in the comments "this is a win for John McCain!"

For example....

9)"A deeply unpopular Governor and lousy Gubernatorial candidate lost which means Obama should probably just resign in shame. Wait, what? The Democrats actually picked up two congressional seats, including one they haven't held since the Civil War? Definitely a win for John McCain."

See this week's election. Seriously, it's like sometimes all the pundits get together before an election over drinks, decide what the storyline will be, and then go out and repeat it over and over again despite whatever the reality might be. Or if it's patently ridiculous.

All political pundits should be fired and forced to work at WalMart.

And, of course, the most obvious one of all:

10)"It was my views that lead to the Iraq war, which we fucked up, and which led us to fuck up Afghanistan, which also made everybody hate us. Oh, that and Guantanamo and all that torturing. Obviously, Obama should do everything I tell him."
I still believe that whenever Krauthammer, Kristol, Cheney, et al appear on TV, there should be a note on the screen listing every thing they've said over the years that turned out completely and totally wrong. And the fact that every reporter they talk to does not say "Yeah, so we followed your policies. How'd that work out for us? Why the fuck do we keep on booking you? Seriously?" is yet another reason I don't watch the news anymore.