Poll cracker

The only thing that depresses me more than Bush’s re-election today is the state of the US media.

It appears that in the aftermath of Dan Rather’s rather unforgivable gaffe for a news outlet as powerful as CBS and a program as popular as 60 minutes, Bill O'Reilly’s sex scandal after a lifetime spent delivering conservative sermons on sexual decorum, Jon Stewart’s being chastised for saying the truth at a time when he arguably conveys more news than his top conventional counterparts; the impending retirement of Tom Brokaw, undoubtedly one of the greatest broadcast journalists of all time and Dave Barry’s proposed hiatus from writing, we have a new miscreant: the new media.

Blogging is all well and good when you are complaining about the awfully cold weather in Colorado or lamenting a badly gone presidential election (like I am doing now), but when you are throwing out stats about exit polls (and warped ones at that) while an election is unfolding, you are doing more than offering solace to that cheery person in sunny Florida (though that might have helped Kerry): you are influencing the election.

Complacence is a state of mind that comes easily to Americans (we saw that in airport security months after 9-11). The last thing you want to tell a voting electorate, especially youth voters that have been dragged out to register at the very last minute, is that the candidate they were intending to vote for is doing extremely well in their swing state, with six hours left until polling booth closure.

If that explanation for last night’s results seems ridiculous, then the other one I have is even more so: Moral Values. Voters in Ohio, a state that has been the hardest hit in terms of job losses, wage stagnation, No Child Left Behind and Health Care, said moral values were the most important deciding factor. Why a man who's worrying about feeding his own child would care about an unborn one two hundred thousand miles away is beyond me.

The final explanation I have is the most disturbing. Americans like idiots.I should have seen it coming: the mistake they seem to excuse most easily is a lack of competence or efficiency but they would go all out to ridicule anyone with even the slightest taint of character.

Reason why George Bush's obvious lack of intelligence is not only easily excused, but appreciated (he actually got away with making jokes about his dismal performance in the first debate this year) as was Ron Reagan's charming presidential debate comment in an attempt to mask his lack of knowledge of the then president of Iran. The most powerful man in the world can have an IQ of 80 but he cant do anything that goes even slightly out of the prototype of a morally conscious individual, something the American people set rigid rules for. The same reason why Bill Clinton gets thrown to the gutters for having an extra-marital affair and John Kerry loses by the largest margin in US Presidential election history because he accepts civil unions and propagates abortion rights.

The media’s explanation for Bush’s likeability takes the cake: Most people in middle America identify with Bush when he looks down, pauses and tries to think about what to say next (and somewhere along the way, manages to utter irrelevant arguments like "He forgot Poland"). “Identify” with him? Are they picking a high school buddy or President of the United States?