Excellent Question

Newscaster: "Mr. O'Leary, how can we in the news media do a better job of focusing on bullshit and really hounding candidates on these petty issues?"
O'Leary, encouragingly: "You're doing a great job as it is."

Sometimes, only jesters dare speak the truth.

Comments

[Martin Owens]

It's a horrible situation, but I think the blame for trivia-driven elections belongs nowhere but on the shoulders of the American citizen.

All the time we hear that the politicians are a bunch of thieves, idiots, whackos. All right, in a private company, when an employee turns into a disaster the question comes up :"who hired this jerk?"

So if the politicians are substandard, who hired them? Us citizens, that's who. Why are the politicians telling lies? Because we won't hire one who tells us the truth. Anyone who tries to tell us that we can't have everything we want just by wishing for it, that 2+2 does not equal five if we scream " justice!" at the blackboard, that certain actions have certain consequences, is denounced as an " extremist", a "crackpot", " racist", " immoral" or lacking "compassion".

But the more incredible lies a politico tells , the more votes he or she is sure to get. Sure, we can have more government- sourced services and benefits, for less taxes; sure, we can go to war and have no one killed; sure, we can burn all the oil we want and have no consequences on the atmosphere or the economy.

And the list of popular lies continues, wearily on into the night.

To borrow a line from Thomas Gray: where government is the slave of fools, 'tis folly to be wise.