Oh, great. Now I have a blog! Now I have to take care of it every day! Writing as if everybody in the world will read it when probably nobody in the world will.
Courtesy of Marshall McLuhan, circa the 1960s, we are told that in modern communication, "the medium is the message".
As I see it, Mr. Obama is as much a media creation as he is anything unto himself. This is not necessarily unique to Mr. Obama, none who falls under media scrutiny emerges as they truly are, but as they are packaged. In the vicious cycle, the principal casualty is always Truth.
The media, like anyone else, like a good story. To the extent that a good story can be crafted from one of the emerging candidates, facts are simply useful, but not essential, and in any event, expendable should they detract from the main deliverable, i.e. the story.
From my perspective, Mr. Obama has nothing really profound to say. However, in a race dominated by Hillary Clinton, with a minor supporting role supplied by John Edwards, Mr. Obama is a crucial character for the plotlines that must be devised by those purveyors of enlightened Thought, e.g., Time, Newsweek, NYT, WP, etc. After all, if you can't crank out interesting stories, day after day, how many newspapers or magazines do you sell?
Barack Obama, an African-American with a Muslim name and a little bit of big league experience (i.e. the US Senate) fits the bill this election cycle for the (pardon the pun) dark-horse candidate, allowing putrid pundits plentiful pontificating. (If it weren't so late, I'd have worked 'plethora' in there somewhere, El Guapo.)
Basically, whatever he says, true for many politicians, is of little import. Consider it as theater, or maybe the circus.
Will Obama best Clinton and Edwards for the Dems' nomination? Doubtful. Will Hillary be the next President? Let us pray not.
2 comments:
Courtesy of Marshall McLuhan, circa the 1960s, we are told that in modern communication, "the medium is the message".
As I see it, Mr. Obama is as much a media creation as he is anything unto himself. This is not necessarily unique to Mr. Obama, none who falls under media scrutiny emerges as they truly are, but as they are packaged. In the vicious cycle, the principal casualty is always Truth.
The media, like anyone else, like a good story. To the extent that a good story can be crafted from one of the emerging candidates, facts are simply useful, but not essential, and in any event, expendable should they detract from the main deliverable, i.e. the story.
From my perspective, Mr. Obama has nothing really profound to say. However, in a race dominated by Hillary Clinton, with a minor supporting role supplied by John Edwards, Mr. Obama is a crucial character for the plotlines that must be devised by those purveyors of enlightened Thought, e.g., Time, Newsweek, NYT, WP, etc. After all, if you can't crank out interesting stories, day after day, how many newspapers or magazines do you sell?
Barack Obama, an African-American with a Muslim name and a little bit of big league experience (i.e. the US Senate) fits the bill this election cycle for the (pardon the pun) dark-horse candidate, allowing putrid pundits plentiful pontificating. (If it weren't so late, I'd have worked 'plethora' in there somewhere, El Guapo.)
Basically, whatever he says, true for many politicians, is of little import. Consider it as theater, or maybe the circus.
Will Obama best Clinton and Edwards for the Dems' nomination? Doubtful. Will Hillary be the next President? Let us pray not.
It's morally wrong in your heart to post a comment that's longer than the original post.
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