Thursday, October 9, 2008

John Stewart, I love you, but get on this!

I was reflecting on something John Stewart said in the last issue of Entertainment Weekly.  He suggested that he expected the Obama-McCain election season to be different, to be something new.  He was disappointed that we are at the same place we were at with Bush-Gore and Bush-Kerry.

He suggests that the campaign season hasn't improved.  Of course, I think it has gotten worse, but Stewart is looking at historical benchmarks as equals.  By saying that things haven't appeared to improve (kind of a vague, non-descript word), he seems to suggest that the 2008 benchmark is comparable to the 2004 and 2000 benchmarks.  I would reject this for two reasons.  First, this is a narrow sampling of benchmarks.  If all are truly equal, and things are consistently bad, let's include 1992, let's use 1980 and 1976.  Perhaps even 1968, 1960, or 1932!  These benchmarks can give the broad view that Stewart is suggesting, but with a more reasonable understanding of politics.

The second reason is the one that interests me more.  It is the idea that even though Sen. John McCain is trying to do his best to be George W. Bush Revisited, Sen. Barack Obama certainly cannot be Sen. John Kerry or Vice President Al Gore.  A more apt political comparison would be Govs. Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter, whose campaign staff were from outside of Washington.  Or perhaps John F. Kennedy, who is known for having both a "typical" staff and trusted confidants that could tell him the truth.  This is not what Gore and Kerry had in their campaigns.

But neither is really the reason things are different this time around, and why many things don't seem better.  Yes, there is a back-and-forth.  There is a "my opponent says this, but..." case--but we are naive (or stupid) if we think that will change.  No, what is different is difference between logic and hyperbole, critical thinking and shouting, cogent arguments and lies.  This is the state of the campaign.

To be fair, things don't look different.  But perhaps that has nothing to do with the candidates or our reality.  Perhaps it has everything to do with the way we are covering things today, and what today means when it becomes yesterday.  With Stewart's harping on things not being different, he is trying to absolve himself of that responsibility for shaping how we perceive current events.

I like him.  I think he's hilarious.  I think he covers things the way I wish the network news teams would.  I think he seems to be unafraid to tell the truth when it needs to be told.  But I don't think he pushes the line.  His cynicism betrays the current arrangement.  As I said in the previous post, McCain/Palin have given up lying and moved into reality-fabrication.  They are not only saying something that isn't true, but creating a frame that is incredibly dangerous.  They are pushing a worldview that has a dangerous endpoint that can only lead to violence or sedition.  They have gone way past the line of acceptability and moved into the mad dogs of our past like the segregationist's run for the presidency through fear and racism.  They are adopting a platform that isn't merely racist and bigoted, but one that encourages hatred.

John Stewart is not picking up on this reality.  No one else is either, but we have come to expect more from him.  We have come to expect wisdom and clarity of vision.  We have come to expect truth-telling in the face of adversity.  And yet, silence.  Actually, worse than silence.  He is belittling this American moral crisis by simply suggesting that things haven't improved from 2004 or 2000.  No, they haven't, but a true moral crime is being committed on the American people: we are being stripped of decency.  For the love of God, McCain and Palin are tacitly endorsing assassination and mob 'justice' against a supposed terrorist sympathizer!  That is what there words imply.

But then again, we're all cynics now.  We had big hopes in the early 90's and Bill let us down when he made us parse the word "is".  When he tried to get out of lying about sex, joining Pres. Nixon in the Hall of Shame.  We think that all politicians are of equal 'bad'.  We say they both take money from evil corporations (even when the ratio is 90/10).  We act as if it is all equal.  And we act as if we aren't complicit in defining "now".

When an employee screws up, you put a note in their file.  If they screw up again, you write them up.  Then, when they really screw up, when they cross the line, you have ample cause for firing them.  You don't overlook the little stuff and pretend the problem will go away.  McCain has messed up from day one and we have given him free passes every week. Now that he's gone too far, what are we to do?  We are implicated in 'the now' by what we failed to do yesterday.

Here's to hoping that our journalists take responsibility for themselves today.  That they take responsibility for how they cover the candidates and this election.  That they take responsibility for the way they shape our understanding of reality.  We can't keep relying on the American people's ability to spot a bad apple when they keep acting as if both are bad--or worse--that they are both edible.

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