Political party has some meaning. The problem is their whole campaigns rely upon painting their opponent as evil incarnate and themselves as heaven sent. They make it out like it's your job to figure out who the REAL anti-christ is. Then, our over-competitive and over-commercialized media does everything they can to preserve their margins whilst blasting us with content all day long every single day of they year. They rarely go beneath what the politicians have to say. To do more would cost more, which they don't want.

I suspect it was better back when there were only 3 network stations and 1 or 2 papers in every city. They had enough room for profits back then that they could hire analysts for specific issues to understand them. But now, the media just takes a grab and go approach with their stories.

I was watching the head of Columbia say he thinks the future of journalism relies on grants. Like PBS and NPR are for America. And, the BBC is for the UK. It's just gotten too competitive otherwise. Being a libertarian I'd rather see private foundations do philanthropy and create their own journalistic enterprises.

One of my current favorites is Obama trying to rile up populist angst by regulating Wall Street. Come on! Like we have any idea about how banks work or how they should be regulated. He says they need more regulation to promote stability, which sounds good. But, like I have any fucking idea how the banks should be regulated. He's just doing the damn thing like it's a high school pep rally though, trying to get out everybody worked up about beating the other team. I personally have no opinion on banking regulation and would be surprised if there's any amount of reading I could do to convince myself one way or another of what should happen.