Jerked around by the MSM

We were watching Hardball last night, and one of the first signs that something new might be in the wind was that uber-Republican lawyer and media personality Ben Stein was suddenly saying something very close to this [transcripts aren't up yet, so I have to go by memory]: "I prefer George Bush, but John Kerry is a perfectly decent human being, and if he wins, he'll be a perfectly decent president."

Huh?

And then -- hmmmm! A prominent Republican putting on a game face in case of defeat? That, more than any wobble in the polls, gave me the first sense that it could really happen.

But it got weirder.

All of a sudden former Congressman and talk-show host Joe Scarborough was saying, "You know all that talk about how there are two Americas? Naahhhh. There's one America." And he and Chris Matthews were off on a cheerful, sentimental riff about how Americans are really united, not divided, and how at the end of today we're all going to pull together behind whoever's elected and be one big happy family again.

In the midst of this heartwarming rhetoric I suddenly turned to my husband and said, "These people are full of shit."

You know, these are the same folks who've been working overtime for months to convince us how irrevocably split-down-the-middle and at-each-other's-throats we are, and raking in the ratings from stoking all that conflict. Now all of a sudden it's like, "You know those wounds we've been gouging? OK, time to start healing them. On cue." Maybe they have noble motives. Maybe they got a little scared of this cultural civil war they've been fomenting, realized belatedly that it's dangerous, and they made some collective behind-the-scenes decision to use their influence to orchestrate national unity instead.

Not so fast, you bastards.

It's not that some national unity wouldn't be desperately welcome right about now. It's, who do these guys think they are to tell us what to think and feel on cue? After months of "This fight is real, this is earnest," they think they can just go, "Hey, game over! Time to come to the net and shake hands"? And we're all supposed to obediently reverse the direction of our hearts because they say so? They actually seem to believe they have their hand on some switch that controls the national mood. I'm like, Don't let them!

I remember the first time I felt jerked around by the mainstream media. Tiananmen Square. For two weeks we had been riveted by this heartbreaking historic event happening live in front of our eyes. Idealistic young Chinese putting their bodies in front of tanks for democracy, weeping as they rushed their bloodied comrades to first-aid stations. When it was over, and the uprising had been crushed, there was one last heart-stopping image: a fragile hand reached out of a streetcar, just before the doors closed, and made the peace sign. And then it was over. It felt as if we had seen something so moving and shattering that we needed to dwell on it, mull it, mourn it, for months. But the TV announcers went right back to their bright amnesic business-as-usual. To them it had only been what Frank Rich calls a "mediathon" -- an entertainment program, which was now over.

I remember having the distinct feeling that my nervous system was being trained to perceive all events as shows, equally insubstantial and vaporous, and that my heart was being trained to turn on a dime -- to change channels. It was a nasty feeling.

It still is.

Comments

[Camassia]

This is why I'm glad I don't get cable channels any more. This stuff is just bad for your health.