Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Need Better View of Candidates

My political affiliation on my Facebook page is listed as Moderate. I really consider myself exactly that. I have never voted straight ticket and never will. 

I like to listen to the speeches, decipher the mud, hot air and realistically filter the words into foundational issues. This election has been a hard one to run through the filtering process. Most of the problem has come from the extremely slanted coverage to the assumed favorite of the networks. For BOTH of the parties. 

I know enough about Biden and McCain. They have been in Washington long enough and I am a firm believer that a tiger doesn't change its stripes. McCain doesn't like fat on bills and Biden knows more world leaders than 99.9% of people in Washington. I want to learn more about Sarah Palin but let me clarify: I want to know about her stances on economics (domestic and global), foreign policy (trade, NATO,UN), plan for energies outside of drilling up the Alaskan Frontier, abortion, taxes for the wealthy and many more. I DO NOT CARE about her daughters baby-daddy, husband who races snow mobiles, that she doesn't know what the Bush Doctrine is and that she can see Russia from her house. 

On the other side of the coin, I want to know more about Barak Obama. I want to know details of this middle class tax cut, how he plans to leverage economic successes while eliminating tax cuts for those who will make it happen, what the relationship between he and Joe Biden will look like if he is the wall flower at the Pakistan Summit. How does he plan to pass socialized health care through when Republicans are so opposed to it and he will need 2/3rds to pass it? I DO NOT CARE that his father is from Africa and his mother is white yet he chooses to call himself black. I am Irish, German and English but claim the Irish more than anything else because I have red tint to my hair and a red beard. I don't want to hear the rants about him being a super secret Muslim terrorist. I don't care if his wife wears expensive clothes. I really, really don't. 
Here is my issue America. More specifically TV. 

NBC, don't wave your Obama flag in public. It's ok to support one candidate over the other but slash and burn techniques on one candidate while doing fluff pieces on good will and charity work of YOUR candidate are very close to yellow journalism. Balance it out. If you don't want to say anything negative about your guy, say only nice things about both. I realize that's a stretch so try this. Make a list of where the candidates stand on the issues and show it to us. Then we can make informed decisions. And by the way (BTW), McCain is running against Obama, not Palin

FOX, just because you hate democrats, you could hide it a little better. I really think Republicans have been trained to listen to you for so long, they'll believe anything you say. The problem is, the anchors and producers of FOX News etc are not like most republicans. Most republicans are NOT millionaires who pee in golden thrones. They drive normal cars with ok jobs and just try to make it. They have been taught that you work hard, avoid handouts and anyone who gives a handout is a Democrat and a system abuser. Is a child who is born homeless and living in a car a system abuser when they go to a free clinic to get a flu shot that the Elephants voted to close down? And so help me if you bring up the What Would Jesus Vote thing, I will smack you with a New Testament! Read your Bible before you stump from it. 

I don't think I am asking for much. If someone says it's a no spin zone, it probably isn't. If someone says it's a fair and honest coverage, it isn't. My dad always told me, if you have to describe yourself with an adjective to get people to listen to you, you probably aren't the adjective. For example Honest Bob's Used Cars. Chances are he isn't honest and in fact, is probably one of millions who draws their political stance from water cooler talk and never looks into anything. 

Lemmings WAKE UP!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hey, you probably do not know me, but I was a college friend of Emily's... I just wanted to say that I totally agree with your stance on the news media. I am a republican (after being bi-partisan up until 4 years ago and still refuse to vote straight ticket just for the "party"...), and I think (maybe with blinders on) that FOX has been a mostly unbiased source of news up until this election. I live in Germany and only have one news channel through AFN, which shows mostly CNN and NBC or MSNBC, but I do still get a couple of their shows, and those have gotten a lot more one sided. I'd still love to watch more of it, as I want to throw things at the TV every time I watch MSNBC! I watch Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert knowing that they are more liberal and not real news (so therefore not bound to a longstanding code of ethics that has recently been forgotten), and even they are more balanced than most of the real news out there. On top of agreeing with you, I just wanted to say, Thank you for making it an educated rant! You have clearly done some research, and I genuinely respect that. Thanks! Lindsay