METANEWS

I remember when I was a kid in Estes Park during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.  Television was beginning to cement its role as the nation's galvanizing force, the thing we all gathered around during those big communal times.  Inaugurations.  Beauty pageants.  Mine cave-ins.  The world on the brink of war.  We all gathered around the tube and with one mind watched the events transpire.  We all let out our collective breaths when the blockade seemed to work.  We were all on the same side, united against a common enemy, determined to preserve our way of life.  Blah, blah, blah.

It doesn't work that way anymore.  Inaugurations divide.  Beauty pageants piss off and offend groups of all descriptions.  Mine cave-ins, or oil spills, or hurricanes, or any other accidental disaster are just handy vehicles for galvanizing one's political base, for somehow directing blame where it can do a candidate the most good, at his or her opponent.  There is no such thing as pure information any more.  No event just happens.  There is always a finger to point, a pundit to pontificate, a candidate to take credit or lay blame.  The reactions to events are more important than the events and that sad state of affairs ends up in skewing the emphasis placed on certain types of news.

Today's news is a case in point.  The lead story on every outlet was Mitt Romney's latest idiocy.  He basically said that all committed Obama voters are either on the public dole or looking for a way to share in the largesse.  They think the country owes them things.  They have all committed the ultimate sin of entitlement and, to use a phrase from Ayn Rand (seems only fair), they are all "moochers."  He then went back in front of the press to tell them that he stood by his message, but he just wished he had stated it more elegantly.  I'm still trying to figure out how one states that message elegantly.  Of course, that story was followed by lengthy commentary from pundits on both sides of the political spectrum analyzing the impact this might have on the election.  From there the producers naturally segued to graphics showing poll results about the upcoming elections.  Obama is leading by 1 point in most polls. The margin of error is plus or minus five points.  Do we really need to know about this?

The Romney fiasco and its commentary used up about five minutes of air time.  Next up was the furor over Kate Middleton's breasts.  There were lots of outraged quotes from royalty and commoners alike.  Lawyers are being consulted.  The major media outlets look down their noses at the tabloids as they unashamedly plaster the television screen with fuzzed over pictures of the Princess' royal, bouncing boobs.  Mercifully, Mitt Romney has not weighed in, so to speak, on the whole topless issue as yet.  London is still recovering from his Olympic visit.

It was the third item that most bothered me and not just because of its placement below Kate's fuzzed out nipples.  The recent rash of "insider" attacks directed at our troops in Afghanistan reached a head yesterday as a group of terrorists dressed in US military gear attacked a major encampment, destroying property and killing Americans.  In a related case, a car loaded with explosives crashed into a tourist bus, killing a dozen innocent people.  That was the news, short and sweet.  When I was a kid, we would have greeted that information as a community worried and grieving.  But today the first question put to the hot shot general in front of the cameras was "What will this do to Obama's promised date for troop withdrawal?"  The commentary almost exclusively focused on how this tragic development was going to be used by both sides (I always thought we were on one side.) to gain votes in November.

Everything is METANEWS.  We talk about how we talk about the news.  We are at least two layers removed from reality.  Given the reality we are two levels removed from, that might not be all that bad.