The Media-Gone-Wild Promise of Passport-gate: A Short History of Buffoonery

P.M. Carpenter, from his new digs at BuzzFlash as 'The Fifth Columnist'.

Although no one yet knows anything of any verifiable substance -- especially the haplessly in-charge Condoleezza Rice, which naturally is just par for the course -- Barack Obama really needed this.

Thank you, oh "-gate" giving gods, for in all your mysterious playfulness we see that you do indeed giveth what you taketh away. And these days really quickly, too.

This is politics, so imagination and suspicion are happily permitted to substitute for material reality and facts. We watched this axiomatic sordidness unfold with splendid exactitude in the aftermath of the Rev. Wright fiasco -- 1) a "scandalous" story breaks ... 2) a thoughtful, convincing response is offered ... 3) the punditry crowd ensues with half-baked speculations and recriminations about number two, not one. We can rest assured, I trust, that irresponsible network jabber will dominate now, as much as before. It's only fair.

A big and booming business was here to stay -- the obsessive, profitable feeding of the unenlightened masses with heaps-more unenlightenment.

In our unaware darkness we never stopped to consider, for example, that the private and not entirely uncommon act of adulterous fellatio could alter if not end the course of Western civilization, but by golly it could, it just could. All we needed, as good citizens, was the proper news and information and truckloads of partisan, talking-head humbug.

Heh. Adulterous Fellatio. Lends a whole new meaning to the term 'AF weenie', don't it?

Fast forward to the present. Is he black enough or too black? Is he a secret Muslim? Does he hold hand over heart? Does he wear a flag pin? Was he sitting in the pews? Is he, in short, as gullible as we are?

Now that's news, and rightly the kind of crapola we can base our presidential preferences on.

The Media's motto seems to be, "If You Can't Dazzle 'Em With Brilliance, Baffle 'Em With Bullshit". We have to wade through 24/7 meaningless drivel to get a little nugget once in a great while. Like gold in a stream, it's a rare occurrence.