He Wasn't Talking To You...

I am not a political animal.  I am not informed enough about politics to be one.  I say this cynically, because our media outlets are so flawed that I think it nigh impossible to be truly informed.  

Let me say this now:  If you really think that Fox News is an unbiased and impartial source of information, you are a fool.

Let me also say this:  If you really think that MSNBC and Mother Jones are unbiased and impartial counterpoints to Fox News, you are also a fool.

There are no such thing as facts anymore.  There are simply statistics that, like scripture, can be interpreted and reinterpreted to suit any argument.  There are video clips, sound bytes, and headlines that inspire public debate and all too soon became points of contention for a polarized American public. 

Out of Context

Candidate Mitt Romney was heavily criticized for statements he made at a fundraiser.  None would have known of these statements had they not been caught on video and placed online.  One of the sources of the video was Mother Jones, by all accounts a "liberal" publication.  I mention this just to be fair and unbiased.  I have heard that a spot at this particular fundraiser cost around fifty thousand dollars a plate, but who knows, it could have been more or less.  Either way this was not a rally or public function, nowhere you or I could afford to be.  I watched several different versions of the video and it was hardly the criminally offensive rant I expected.  At least I wasn't offended.  He stated his estimation of the American voting public, particularly this forty seven percent that he, admittedly, isn't concerned about.  

Despite the controversy, Romney has never really apologized, only saying that his words were "inelegant" and hoping that he wished whoever posted the video would post all of it.  Taken in it's entirety, what he said wasn't so bad.  At least that's what he says.  

The point is, how would any of us heard anything of this had the video not been taken and then leaked?  Why did what Candidate Romney say at this function sound so little like what he says to the American public at large?  He called his words "inelegant", but a better word might be "unrehearsed".

I don't know about you, but if I paid thousands upon thousands of dollars in support of a candidate, I wouldn't want the same old rhetoric I could hear on television for free.  Romney was putting on a show for those assembled, telling them what they wanted to hear.  He told them about Americans who saw their basic comforts as "entitlements" and scorned them for it.  Like a magician at a kids birthday party, he performed.

By the time a politicians rhetoric gets down here to us, it's so homogenized and watered down as to render it completely meaningless.  The bulk of what either the President or Romney say is virtually indistinguishable.  Fifty thousand dollars, however, buys you a plate of food and an earful of what a  candidate really thinks about the people voting for him or for his opponent.    

Now, don't get on your left-wing high horse just yet.  Any day now another video will leak, one from another fundraising billion dollar buffet, only this time the President will be caught on tape, making "inelegant" statements.  It's just how things work these days, and I bet I know which network will premiere it when it does surface.  

Like I said, it didn't offend me, but the leaked Romney video kind of made the guy look like an asshole.  There, I said it.  But the big lesson I took from the whole thing was this:  Since when do you have to pay through the nose to keep from getting smoke blown up your ass?

My apologies on using the word "ass" twice there at the end.  I hope it doesn't undermine my message.   

And me?  I'm voting for Donald Duck.