Media the Mouth Piece

Last Night I got to watch a few minutes of the News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. They had a segment with “Informal” Advisors to Presidential candidates McCain and Obama talking about each candidate’s position on Iraq. Right before the segment had aired, they had done a segment on the NY Time’s rejection of Senator McCain’s Op Ed piece and the Bru Ha Ha this rejection has created.

As I watched these “Informal” Advisors play chess, it sadden me. All I saw was each candidates stump speech come out of someone else’s mouth. I will say that McCain’s “Informal” Advisor was better at stumping then Obama’s. He talked over the others and kept hitting the same point over and over.

My sadness comes from seeing the media once again becoming a wasteland of sound bites, as I saw on PBS, and side issues, like the Op Ed piece Bru Ha Ha.

We deserve better, we deserve to hear real positions and dialogue about the issues we face.

During the ping pong match on Iraq I kept thinking…
”What the hell is an Informal Advisor anyway?”
“Does this mean they only advisor in shorts and a t-shirt or maybe Khakis and a button down?”
“Or does it mean they advise, but really aren’t listened too?”

I also kept wondering “If you’re an advisor why are you telling me the candidate’s positions vs. what you’ve advised them on?”

Lastly I thought… “Didn’t Obama’s people learn anything from the Movie Recount on HBO?”

At the end of the segment I had to give the win to McCain’s man on “over talking alone.” He shut down the Newscaster and the Obama mouthpiece and allowed no substance to be discussed.

I didn’t learn much more about which candidate would be better for the country at all, but I did learn it sometimes might be better to have a loud mouth, than a more reserved person as your “Informal Advisor.”

Tom Pellicane – Publisher, canvas Magazine