Our Un-Enlightenment

Let the slings and arrows begin to rain down on my hypocritical head. I didn’t watch the first presidential debate of 2008.

Seeing as how I allege to maintain a political blog, I can understand why my reader(s) would call me a phony or a fake for skipping out on the elections first real showdown. Your accusations are duly noted and subsequently tossed aside in indifference.

I didn’t skip the debates purposely. I honestly forgot about them. To me, debates do nothing more than provide a public forum for us to be force-fed half-truths and generic jargon. I’m worried about the economy because I would like employment to be a big part of my future. A presidential debate won’t alleviate that fear. I suppose it could be argued that, down the road, the debate may factor into our economic crisis.

No, it probably won’t. It’s as simple as that. How many elections do we have to sit through before we realize that what a candidate says rarely translates into real, effective action once he’s in the White House. Actions may help the economy once of these loggerheads is elected, but that remains to be seen.

I would also like to make clear the fact that, even if I’d remembered to watch the debate, I still would’ve skipped it. Civic irresponsibility, you claim? I doubt that. I’ll catch the abridged versions in the New York Times, on YouTube.com and I’ll even watch Fox News to get my info from all angles.

According to each of these outlets, I’ll be able to hear why the candidates’ supporters are sure their guy won and watch streaming video to support or refute the claims of each camp’s respective yes men.

I would not have watched the debate because they are boring. They put me to sleep. The prospect of a presidential debate is about as entertaining as an episode of “The Flavor of Love.”

I am completely apathetic to a debate’s outcome, and I firmly believe that an election should never rest upon the words spewed from behind a lectern by a candidate who is salivating for the highest office in the United States. They have incentive to stretch the truth to make us common folk hoot and holler, only to leave us high and dry when we realize their first 100 days as president amounted to little more than a sappy inauguration and a whole lot of thumb-twiddling.

I’m a full-time student, president of a student organization and I work two jobs totaling about 45 hours a week. When I do have free time, I’d rather study or party than be lied to.

We’re pushing the midpoint of September, and the election record sounds like it’s skipping.

Anyone who has been paying any small bit of attention to the presidential race must be getting a little bored. That’s not good considering we still have about six weeks before Election Day.

Media coverage of the 2008 presidential election began to stall around this point in August. Everyone began to focus on potential running mates at the beginning of last month and had bled the topic dry two weeks into discussion. As soon as Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware was announced as Obama’s running mate, the media frenzy was rejuvenated.

First, the articles simply named Biden as Democratic choice for vice-president. Then, they trolled the Democratic Party for opinions on Obama’s choice. He was the media’s love fling for all of four days before they got their claws on McCain’s choice.

Since the beginning of September, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has dominated the majority of the latest election-related headlines. Whether she’s insulting Obama’s background, being compared to a pig in lipstick or having her e-mail hacked, Palin has effectively stolen the spotlight from the three men involved in this campaign.

As an aspiring member of the media, I understand why this keeps happening. McCain amassed little coverage initially because he’s a traditional nominee who put his name in the presidential-candidate hat before this election. Naturally, the first African-American to rise to the top of one of the major parties is much more newsworthy, so the media jumped on Obama.

But then Obama’s stories started to dry up and people began turning the page on his articles in search of some instant gratification. That’s why Biden seemed so attractive when he was announced as Obama’s running mate. He was the new guy. People already knew about the two big dogs, so the media put the spotlight on Biden – for four days.

Then along came an Alaskan and that was all she wrote. A woman on the republican presidential ticket- it couldn’t be. Palin’s nomination pulled the rug right out from underneath Biden’s feet and effectively overpowered the momentum of Obama’s campaign.

Now that her story is wearing thin, where will they turn next? My guess is that, because all four major players have already been announced and thoroughly abused, the media may have to switch their coverage back to the boring stuff – the relevant issues.

We have yet again been blessed by a storm of media coverage that has nothing to do with anything relevant.

You’d think that, because it’s an election year, the headlines would be bogging us down with drab stories about candidates’ meet-and-greets in local diners in small midwestern towns or rallies outside huge factories in overcrowded northeastern cities.

That is usually what happens, right?

Unfortunately, the American obsession with the unnecessary cannot be subdued for more than a week.

Last Wednesday, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin unwittingly unveiled the latest fashion trend for politically inclined women - her glasses.

Across the nation, optometrists have been flooded with requests for Palin’s frames. Four-hundred dollar frames have stolen the spotlight that was once dominated by Sen. Barack Obama’s political inexperience. ABC News went so far as to put Palin in the same bespectacled spotlight as Tina Fey, Sally Jesse Raphael and Velma from “Scooby-Doo, Where are you?”- talk about heavyweights.

I wasn’t sure which party I was going to vote for, but now that I know Palin represents fans of the worst years of “Saturday Night Live,” afternoon talk shows and old cartoons, that’s a burden I no longer have to shoulder.

It appears that the once-unflappable democratic candidate has finally been, well, flapped.

Sen. Obama’s campaign is said to be taking to a turn towards a sharper, more hard-nosed approach to the presidential race. Who could blame him?

Since Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin joined the circus, she’s been spewing more one-liners than Rodney Dangerfield. Then there’s the marvelous and ultra-professional anti-Obama ads that John McCain’s crew has produced. I suppose the only way to back “celebutante” allegations is to step up your defense and play a bit of offense.

Hopefully,  the donkeys in Obama’s camp don’t stoop as pitifully low as to compare McCain to a pair of idiotic pop culture half-wits. Mudslinging is one thing, but McCain’s ad featuring Britney Spears and Paris Hilton was plain dumb.

For me, both candidates have a long way to go in this election, and if Obama plans on raising the campaign-pettiness bar as McCain has, then I might just go into hibernation on Nov. 4.

“…who thinks we’re taking ourselves too seriously.”

Sorry to start under false pretenses, but that line is not original by any means. It’s a line from the band Against Me! in their song “Don’t Lose Touch.”

I just happen to believe that it makes more sense than a lot of the news that we see with these days.

It seems that America’s overstated self-importance, from the government down to the individual level, has begun to cloud our minds from things that are truly important. Not to sound too Hippie, but international issues like the atrocities in Darfur and Russia’s attacks on Georgia  should never take a backseat to the cost of Cindy McCain’s earrings in terms of newsworthiness.

On what level does this make a bit of sense?

I don’t mean to imply that everyone should drop what they’re doing to try to help save the world- we all have problems of our own- but it’s embarrassing to think that there are so many Americans who would rather read about a potential First Lady’s outift than take the time to research a genocidal operation.

Being that this is my first blog post, I want to make clear that I would never claim to be free of these tendencies, because I know that simply isn’t true. But the past few years have shown me that, rather than becoming more involved in the world around us, citizens of the United States seem to cower behind our own pettiness to insulate ourselves from the problems of the outside world.

I intend to keep tabs on this nonsense as long as I post here.