Blame First Ask Questions Last

The election of Barack Obama as president of the United States seemed to usher in a dawn of new politics. People hoped that politics would change enough to the point where policy matters were discussed on their merit and how they would affect the real people of the United States and the world around us. Sadly that has not happened. We can see the failure of this new form of politics among politicians. Both major parties recite old cliches when critiquing the other. Democrats/liberals accuse those on the right of being soul-less, impossible of being passionate, and selfish evil people. Republicans/conservatives all spread the propaganda that those on the left seek to take away all individuality and make the United States one God-less monolith. This is definitely not the change I hoped for.

The United States is a nation with very serious and critical policy matters to discuss. Not least among them is the issue of its economy. Because the U.S. does not have a pure market or capitalist economy it is extremely nuanced. As one commentator on MSNBC was trying to explain the complicated matters of federal currency regulation another commentator on the network called him "wonkish". Wonkish is a term most often used to describe one who is immersed in the particulars of policy. However with the state of affairs in the United States perhaps now is the time to be wonkish. Now is the time people should be made completely aware of what is going on. Rather than do that, the left-leaning network spent very little time looking at the intricacies of economic policy and went back to reciting cliched themes of "Bush failure" and "Cheney torture"

The left-leaning MSNBC is not the only network that would rather play the blame game than seriously look at and consider the way policy will affect American people. Fox news has a history of skewing the presentation of the news to the favor of conservatives. However they drop the ball in their presentation of health care matters. When the conversation of health-care is had on one of their "Great American Panels" they act as if there isn't a significant portion of the nation that is advocating for the single-payer system. The single payer system is one where the government provides for the health care of its citizens (see With Liberty and Health Care for All Feb 4, 2009). The rhetoric used by Fox News suggest that a single payer option will financially bankrupt the nation and destory the concept of individuality in every way. However they don't take the painstaking steps the California Nurses Association took when it researched the topic and came with the economic numbers that a single payer health care option would turn out.

Unfortunately the lack of intelligent discourse or policy matters on those stations may not be new news to many people. The 24 hour news networks may not have the time nor actually care to put in the effort necessary to have a policy conversation. Even with that one would expect the Sunday morning programs to get more the heart of political affairs. Sadly this doesn't even happen there. On the long running Sunday morning program "The McLaughlin Group" the panelist discussed whether or not Barack Obama spent too much time "blaming America" and apologizing in his Cairo speech. Rather than doing that, perhaps they should have been examining the merit of his words. He was (for really the first time in modern U.S. politics) at the very least acknowledging the United States did not have clean hands when it came to Middle East affairs.

The problem with this behavior is that citizens are kept away from making informed judgments because all the people charged with informing them are failing. Politicians can not see past the special interest and next election to actually discuss policy matters. Journalist can't seem to see beyond the next sound-byte, or "gotcha quote" to explain matters. Sadly what is left is an uniformed nation who rather than discuss policy positions instead revert to inflammatory rhetoric and playing the blame game.