I AM THE FORCE

Here's what bothers me about political pundits. Skilled and intelligent people like Mark Shields and Bill Christofferson, for example. They seem to consider it their job to blast the other party, and put the most negative possible spin on almost everything that the "bad guys" do. They aren't objective and they aren't honest. They're like representatives of the candidates working the spin room after a debate. Our side's great, their side sucks. The pundits never provide a truly honest assessment of any situation, because they are engaged in doing something else entirely. They've become a P.R. firm for one team or the other. You should be able to recognize yourself as a committed partisan, while at the same time delivering honesty, candor and insight in your observations about the political world. It would be interesting to know what Bill Christofferson really thinks of Mark Green, but that does not appear to be possible. These guys should stop acting like propaganda machines and tell us what they really think.

Mark Shields was talking about President Bush last night, and just whining on and on about how much trouble he's in and how no one believes him anymore and how the poll numbers are bad. Does his version of the truth presuppose that George W. Bush will always be wrong. And does Bill Christofferson's version of the truth presuppose that Jim Doyle makes all the right decisions? They view the world through a lens of some kind that filters everything down into a simple formula. It doesn't end up being very honest or enlightening, at least not to me. Even when done well, they come off as the voice of a party. Why can't these guys leave the dishonest spin to the likes of Joe Wineke and Rick Graber?

Now, the only thing that could be worse is if we have all actually devolved into reflexive and mindless adherence to dogma. If Xoff has truly convinced himself that Republicans are evil and Democrats are righteous, then maybe he's not as smart as I thought. Having an Ed Gravy-like worldview doesn't make anyone very interesting or insightful. Crazy true believers are just full-time spinners who keep processing the world down into the same boring conspiracies. Like an endless and pointless argument between college republicans and democrats. Are corporations evil just because your dogma makes them so? Of course not. The facts should stand alone, but Enron will always be about greedy Republicans to the likes of Shields and Christofferson.

Sorry for picking on Shields and Christofferson, because this is actually an almost universal sickness in the world of punditry -- both DEM and GOP. It also has a great deal of strength in the blogosphere. There are exceptions to this dogmatic cheerleading on both sides, but not enough of them.

I am not arguing for disloyalty to party or abandonment of principles. I would just like to see political commentators acting more like John McCain in the Straight Talk Express. Tell it like it is, and don't be so blinded by personal dogma that you can't see or discuss what's really going on. That may not serve the wishes of the parties, but I think we'd all be much better off.