Classmates Responses....

The following is a comment response to Best Intention's: Characters we love to Hate.

I agree with both of you that these pundits do use their shows/books/radio and power to sell their opinion and I also agree that something needs to be done about it, but is it really that big of a deal?

We know about Rush Limbaugh and the help he provided to the Republican Party's domination of the Senate and the House. We know that the electronic precinct captain, took potshots at the Democratic campaign and specifically the Clinton presidency. It is surmised that his radio show helped a great deal to idolize the Republican party in the eyes (or perhaps ears) of the show's listeners, and so he played a direct role in the Republican domination of 1994. In fact the only reason that the Republicans got the majority in both houses was due to the failure of the Clinton health plan, which contradicting the then current sayings of Limbaugh and his fellows is a big deal now.

This isn't to say that Coulter and O'Reilly haven't been playing the faux-guru game on their own. Whereas Limbaugh was the radio-lord of his time, O'Reilly is the asshole-reporter during ours. Every episode ends the same with O'Reilly and his lapdog (sometimes dogs) yelling down the opposer trying to get their point across. Maybe the show appeals to those without a back-bone unable to stand up for themselves, but all O'Reilly does is employ the same smear tactics that Limbaugh used during his time. Sadly for O'Reilly the majority of the country is against his party's ideals so he won't be getting the "television precinct captain" title yet, but given the country's shift in ideals on every election year he'll probably get it after the 2012 presidential election.

So far I've just bashed the Republican-side of the smear shows, let's get to the Democratic side. Let's see ABC evening nope, Good Morning America wtf. kind of list is this ahh here we go Jon Stewart's Daily Show. While not on the same level of douchebagg-ery as O'Reilly Stewart does employ satire and comedy in his Daily humiliation of the Republican party's antics. I guess you reap what you sow, although if you've sown the Daily Show ... we'll that's just funny.

Perhaps my leftist, liberal Jekkyl is slowly bleeding into my typing but I've got a precious forty minutes left before my 12:00 o'clock deadline and given I am literally using a modern typer-writer to submit this assignment I'll finish here.

My main points were that yes slammer shows really blur the line between good news and an hour of slamming the other party, but still given this hindrance it is the duty of well-informed and capable citizens to find alternate sources to gather their "news" from.