The political blogs, like MyDD are all election, all the time. Firedoglake gets credit for being 2/3 election, all the time. Huffington Post is 3/4 election, and 3/4 of that is election fluff and refuse. On New Year's Eve, this was the top HuffPost story, with two big photos: "Edwards: Obama Too "Nice" For The Presidency." It was followed by these edifying tracts:
Huckabee Questions Romney's Honesty
Marty Kaplan: I Know Who's Going to Win
Iowa>> Romney Surging In Polls As Caucus Nears
Live Iowa Campaign Journal - Blowing Bubbles
Politics >> Clinton-Backing Ohio Governor Calls IA Caucuses "Hugely Undemocratic"
Washington Post Editorial Misses Mark With Criticism of Obama
More in Politics >> McCain's Extensive Wooing Of Lobbyists Exposed ... NYT: Bloomberg Moves Closer To Prez Run
Obama: "The Real Gamble Is Having The Same Old Folks Doing The Same Old Things And Expecting A Different Result"
Joe Biden: Dem Rivals "Not Making Sense" On Bhutto...
Huckabee Pleads Poverty As He Takes Cash For Speeches
Edwards Radicalizes Anti-Corporate Pitch
Ron Paul Third?
BIO: Up Close and Personal With Edwards
HuffPolitics: Marc Cooper >> Will Edwards Really Win Iowa?
BIO: Obama Rolls The Dice With Latest Edwards Criticism
Edwards: Bill Clinton Has A Place In My White House
Hillary's Final Strategy: Be Afraid
Media Insiders Shaft Biden, Richardson, Dodd, Kucinich and America
What's the Matter with Iowa?
Some of those articles are by people I greatly admire, and in some cases know and like. But if they were in that Star Trek episode I mentioned, my concern would be that their abilities were being wasted when we needed them most. Here is the complete set of headlines that the otherwise wonderful website BuzzFlash Emailed out in a New Year's Eve Email:
Awhile back there was a rumor buzzing around that McCain was pleading with the NYT not to post an article revealing his extensive -- and hypocritical -- tie to lobbyists. Turns out it was the WP working on the article, and they posted it on Dec. 31.
Latest MSNBC-McClatchy Poll: Dem Race Still Too Close to Call, With Shifts of One or Two Percentage Points Day by Day. "Where Edwards previously had lagged slightly behind Clinton and Obama, the poll showed him at 24 percent, compared with Clinton at 23 percent and Obama at 22 percent."
BuzzFlash's Last Chance Democracy Cafe: Screw Bipartisanship
Senator Obama's Barber Shop: Come on a BuzzFlash Video Visit to the Home of the "Obama Cut." Learn About Barack's Favorite Sports Team and His Loyalty to His Neighborhood Barber of 13 Years. We Needed a Break, As You Do, from the Doom and Gloom.
Over on Dailykos on New Year's Eve, the top story was "Huckabee's Imaginary Conception." Below it were posts like these: "More failed 'leadership,' please! On white toast with mayo," and "Mike Huckabee's incisive grasp of foreign policy." The top recommended diary was "MSM Continues Blackout of John Edwards." It was followed by "The Iowa Edwards Surge -- first-hand, on the ground," and "Barack Obama will change the system part 2."
I guess it's a relief to know that WE don't have to be the ones to change the system. Over on Alternet, the top story on New Year's Eve was "GOP Mess in Iowa: Romney Stalls, Giuliani's Flailing, Huckabee Scares the GOP Establishment." It was followed by these gems:
Despite Media Hype, Iowa's Democratic Caucuses Will Have No True Winner
Huckabee: 'I Don’t Know' If People Are 'Born' Gay, But It’s a 'Choice' to Act Gay [VIDEO]
Election 2008: Huckabee has a record of using the power of government to discriminate against the choices that gay Americans make in their private lives.
Iowa: Edwards Takes on Corporate Greed
The Imperial Presidency: The '08 Candidates Weigh In
Behind the Edwards Surge: Right Message at the Right Time
The Best Moments in Mike Huckabee's Extremism
Iowa Caucuses: Not the Battle of the Century
Oh, and that "Imperial Presidency" one - contributed by Huffington Post - is a column arguing that we should address through an election, a year away, exactly what the authors of the Constitution told us to address through impeachment.
Better than average on the awaking-from-eternal-election-daze count is Common Dreams, which on New Year's Eve ran the top headline: "FROM IOWA CORNFIELDS, A LEFT-TILTING TRADITION, MOST DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATES VOTE FOR NUCLEAR POWER," but which carried below it a relatively small percentage of election headlines, including these:
An Endorsement from the Wilderness
Behind the Edwards Surge: Right Message at the Right Time
What Hillary Hasn’t Done in Foreign Policy
Mitt Romney’s Pursuit of Tyrannical Power, Literally
Candidates Split Along Party Lines on Healthcare
Truthout.org does relatively well too, tending to run 50% or less election coverage. OpEdNews is superb, making election coverage far less than half its news. On New Year's Eve, it featured two election-related top headlines, but one of them was about preventing election fraud and the other about Ron Paul's refusal to support impeachment.
Democratic Underground is pretty far gone on most days, running lots of election blogs and even more election videos. Video websites are easily dominated by election fluff, but video-heavy Crooks and Liars tends to keep election nonsense to a relatively low level.
I mention all of these websites, because they are the ones I like and would like to see focused on the work needed to restore our democracy, not a year from now, but immediately. My goal is not to leave the business of elections to those who will steal what we break our necks preventing them from winning. My goal is to shift the political discussion in ways that, among many other things, compel better political candidates.
