Small Stories for Small Minds

The AP just published a 461-word piece which essentially said: Associated Press writer Nancy Benac is an idiot.  It was titled Obama, Palin trade telling jibes over crib sheets, which can be summed as: Republicans attack Obama for using a teleprompter, Democrats attack Palin for writing notes on her hand, and this is important because "small things take on big meaning when they become emblematic of larger truths."

Her other evidence of this is that the media made a big deal about John Edwards' hair and Joe the Plumber.  Are we to imagine that other politicians don't have their hair done by professionals?  Or that Joe the Plumber really was an average Joe looking for answers, rather than a typical conservative moron who tried to embarrass Obama by his own lack of intelligence?  Perhaps Palin has Joe cut her hair and do her cribsheets as a testament to her averageness.

Because I've got a better theory about why these small things are imporant: Because reporters are small-minded twits who abhor larger truths.  They focus on these little things because that's all they see.  And they'd rather talk about teleprompter attacks and palm smackdowns because it's far more interesting to them than healthcare policies and the economy; and they wouldn't even be interested in politics at all, were it not the top beat in their profession.  And if celebrity news could get them the street cred they desire, they'd be walking the streets of Hollywood looking for dirt and would leave D.C. the hell alone.

So we're stuck with stories about personal attacks, in which it's now considered "out of touch" to use teleprompters, and where Obama's use of a telepromter to give speeches is the same as Palin needing a cheatsheet to remember her core beliefs.  And the fact that Obama has left no doubts that he's extremely brilliant even without a teleprompter couldn't be included in the article at all.