The first four blogs I read this morning were discussions about the Senate process and Republican antics to "block" the bill that fine tunes "health care reform" that passed last weekend. Countdown last night spent at least fifteen minutes on the same topic.
Why? The fine-tuning bill is going to pass, and if it has to go back to the House it will pass there in a day or so. The Republican antics are totally meaningless and will have absolutely no effect on the final outcome of "health care reform." Why are we giving these idiots so much attention when they are so meaningless as to the outcome of current legislation?
The "Tea Parties" almost certainly have fewer than one million members. That would be well under one percent of the population, so why do cable news and the blogs give them so much air time? They are a radical fringe and will have no significant effect on any future election. They are mentally ill people who crave attention, and the media is giving them that attention. We should do the same thing with them that we do with streakers at football games; deny them the attention they seek and they will, for the most part, go away.
Update: Thursday, 10:30am
I'm not saying that these things should be covered up, or or that they should not be reported as news; I'm saying that they should not be used as topics of lengthy discussions, with endlessly repeated airing of film clips.
You ask "why do cable news and the blogs give [Tea Parties] so much air time?" Then you answer your own question: "the are a radical fringe..." The "mentally ill" and other "people who crave attention" are just so weird and interesting, and stories about them sell newspapers. Real stories, about important things, require intelligence and time to analyze, not to mention a lot of background information to contextualize. Things that most reporters seem to lack, and most editors believe that most readers lack. I am very sad to say that my experience indicates that they are right, and all too many of those readers who DO have the intelligence & education to understand, either don't care, or have already made their minds up about such subjects
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