Networks Sleep While Democracy Burns

Sometimes mainstream media reveal their failures in displays so stark that it makes the job of media critics too easy.

NBC, ABC and CBS frequently forget to serve their viewers, to be sure, but certain miscues are a special boon to bloggers and media reformers, who work tirelessly to show that the titans of the mainstream consistently miss the most important stories of our time.

Network coverage of the political conventions this week and next is a case in point, as American politics takes a back seat to mainstream media reality.

Running for War President at Any Cost

Just great! Nuclear-armed Pakistan is falling apart, Iran's nuclear program is unchecked and congressional legislation on cooperation with the Russians on controlling nuclear proliferation is now dead in the water. Horrid news except for Sen. John McCain, who thrills to a repeat of the danger lines of the Cold War, and now stands a good chance of being our next president.

AT&T Thanks the Blue Dog Democrats With a Lavish Party

The Future That Never Comes; The Past That Never Was; The Present Inscrutable

Why am I not surprised by Obama's choice of Joe Biden as his running mate? Because I learned as a child: in America, the future never comes!

Should we shake our heads, wondering, when the candidate for "change we can believe in" chooses a consummate Washington "insider" as his co-agent for that change? Not if we understand that we have lived for decades in a military-industrial, media-fashioned, academia-certified, legally sanctioned Disney World/Murdoch World in which the future never comes.

Twisting the Concept of 'Elite'

Clearly, a compulsory item future U.S. presidential candidates will have to commit to memory will be the number of houses they own.

Sadly, however, there may be no other repercussion from Republican John McCain's inability last week to remember that he owned seven.

Conservative pundits were quick to suggest that attempts by Democratic rival Barack Obama to make an issue out of McCain's wealth would backfire since, they said, Obama is the real elitist who's out of touch with ordinary Americans.

This involves some twisted logic.

Beyond the Clintons

All eyes are on Denver and whether the Democratic party will unify around Barack Obama, healing rifts that remain from the protracted primary fight. But the focus should be on unity of values and purpose, not just candidacy. By now, we all know American voters want change. But what do they mean? It's not just a change of leaders, continuing the same time-honored Washington tradition of sticking one's finger in the air to see which way the wind blows and calling that leadership (while continuing to the same, old politics behind the scenes). Voters want to change the wind.