CNN Sure Likes Obama

In the midst of the powerful conservative bias of FOX News CNN generally stands out as a much more reasoned point of view, but I'd have to say their profiles of the Obamas and the McCains sure seemed to favor Obama. Although it is reasonable to suggest both Cindy and John McCain's past is more controversial in many respects than Barack or Michelle Obama's past, the profile highlights seemed to focus almost exclusively on the McCain's defects and the Obama's virtues.

One can't help but suspect that the hip CNN crowd strongly favors a presidential win by Obama, who even detractors would agree is a lot cooler than McCain. The fact that this opinion seeped so powerfully into the profiles is cause for concern, though CNN would have to do a lot more than this to even hint at the kind of bias we see daily on FOX news, which is so heavily spun to the right it's often hard to extract the real news from the spin.

American Politics: Shame on us all

While issues go largely ignored in the media we've got politics center stage pretty much 24/7 now as personal attacks go overreported, indiscretions are speculatively addressed, and pundits spend most of their energies on irrelevant analyses of the horserace.

Shame on the big media.

It would not bring as many viewers, but it would be helpful to have a thoughtful examination of the various policy platforms of all the major candidates. The debates to their credit often address these issues of subtance, but the big media generally fails to follow up on the details or the implications of these platform differences. It's not really their fault, rather it is ours, becausa we don't want the complicated truth - we want the simple sexy nonsense.

Shame on us!

Republican YouTube CNN debate

Tonight the Republicans debate was hosted by CNN and YouTube. Anderson Cooper did a stand up moderating job. I'm not enamored with the YouTube format, feeling that the questions tend to be quirky or sort of "gotcha!" style rather than a thoughtful reflection on the perils and promises of our American democracy.

But who am I kidding? The American elections are more an entertainment and marketing excercise than a study in debate and democracy, and tonight was no exception to that as YouTubers did ask some good questions like "what will you do about Black on Black violence" and "What would you do to repair the image of America" in the eyes of the world?