Who will be
president in 2017?
No one knows.
A lot of people
care, of course, but no one knows.
It’s unknowable
right now. Too many candidates, too many variables, too many unknown events yet
to happen between now and the 2016 election.
So, why are the news
media and the cable TV talking heads unflinchingly fixated on trying to
handicap the race for the presidency?
For one thing, it’s
more interesting to report the gotcha tidbits that fill our news channels, and
it’s easy to get more or less anybody to say something more or less provocative
about more or less any of the candidates, more or less all the time. Millions
of people read and listen to that stuff, day after day.
It’s a waste of
time.
Hillary Clinton, as
of today, is almost certainly going to be the Democratic candidate. Yet, the
media and the talking heads incessantly talk about gaffes, the knowns and
unknowns about the Bill issue, her endlessly politicized and mis-characterized
past actions, her wealth, the fact that she’s a woman, the supposed need for
another Democratic candidate, unreliable and contradictory poll results….
The media and the
talking heads are devoting more or less zero energy to exploring her revealed
and presumed policy convictions and her revealed and presumed program intentions.
In other words, the “news”
is about the candidate and the race and the political process, with little or
no informed reflection on how Hillary Clinton might lead, inspire and perform
as President of the United States.
On the Republican
side, oh my, the media and the talking heads are on their knees on the sloppy,
muddy race track and they can’t get up or even look around, and the only
reports they’re offering are about the hoof prints. Of course, there’s going to
be a Republican nominee next summer. If the pundits would take a six-month
break from trying to guess precisely who it’s going to be, a lot of people
would be happier.
Including me.
Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2015 All rights reserved.
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