That was a good piece. It is sad that so many people are so misinformed. I think with the way we are all so busy and the fact that it's easy to get your news from the tv or radio, we're sort of lazy in this country when it comes to news. Several items do seem to play into this including the fact that today politics is a profession and they hire people to manipulate what we feel or think about them and what they are doing. We accept the presence of "spin doctors" working for our politicians. I think this election we are in the midst of now should be studied over the years. It stinks to the high heavens. Our media is a player in it rather than an "educator" and really I can't blame people for not understanding the situation.

How is a mother or father that works all day and comes home to deal with the kids and household matters going to find time to sift through the bullshit that's presented? I mean it's a little easier for a guy like me to stay informed because I don't have kids...yet...so I can spend a few hours at night reading if I choose to. Others don't have that luxury.

I do think the media does a lousy job but not in the way some believe. This invention of a broad media bias against the right, for example, is a product of years of spin created by people hired to put that thought in the publics mind. It's worked amazingly well. Many people focus more on the people doing the reporting than stories themselves. Now if a reporter writes a story or does a report on something what happens? Before the story can go anywhere the person reporting the story is attacked. Dan Rather is now under the microscope for reporting documents that were discovered. We have not even got a good confirmation yet on if the documents are any good or if they are crap or how they stack up against other documents...but Rather is under fire and being called all sorts of stuff. They already have people believing Rather works for the Kerry campaign and 60 Minutes is an extention of the Kerry campaign...and blah, blah, blah...the forces are already mobilized and ready to attack. Of course they have been building up a distrust of the media and the idea of liberal bias for years so they have a group of people who are ready and willing to dismiss anything CBS says or the New York Times prints because in the words of Kevin G "they already drank the kool-aid."

This leads to people just believing what they choose and dismissing what they don't like because "they believe the media lies to them" for... well...name your reason. When we have a media that seems to be more about "Hey look at me!" than it is about "Let's educate the public." then what the hell can you do?

Hey we've got a large percentage of people in this country that never even watch the news and an even larger percentage that never pick up a newspaper...funny enough the second group even includes our current president.