This forum is tired of Newt attacking the media?

[LastVoter]

That's all American politics at the "grassroots" (lol) is at this point. No need to feel bad about something all the other dumbs still preoccupy themselves with. Well, at least on what should be secondary issues.

It's not that I feel bad for the media. They're big boys. They can take it.

It's just that this sort of thing isn't good for the people doing it. It might be politically useful but it distorts a clear picture of the world for those who do it. It helps to give us candidates like Bachmann, Perry, and Cain whose failures should have been pretty obvious to see coming if we were able to step back from the crowd and take an honest look at them.

This mindset stops people from asking difficult questions about themselves. That's the real problem.

I think you have it the other way around. The problem is that many if not most americans lack critical thinking skills now. That's what you get after a lifetime of being taught to regurgitate "facts" in school or listening to people tell you what to think or buy on tv/radio. Maybe they might sense they're getting f**ked over by a few cartels (hmos, "education," contractors, bailed out banks/corps, etc.) and get angry over that. Maybe occasionally they might even realize those are government subsidized and lash out at them too, for a little bit. But then they quickly re-direct the anger to team red or blue or some other "out" group (whites, blacks, gays, mexicans, atheists, city dwellers, fundies, whatever) like they've been taught to. That's why you get "protest" movements like OWS or the Teabaggers. If they could do what you're talking about they wouldn't have that mindset.

Or in your case Gubmint is bad, right?

[courts]

Yeah bro, that was totally my point.

[memphis]

Yes. More distractions from actual policy proposals. I'm not laying off this campaign. I am so fed up with the distractions, fake personalities, and everything else involved in the damn campaigns. Candidates for President, can we please just focus on issues? There are plenty of them to go around.

[pbrower2a]

That's all American politics at the "grassroots" (lol) is at this point. No need to feel bad about something all the other dumbs still preoccupy themselves with. Well, at least on what should be secondary issues.

It's not that I feel bad for the media. They're big boys. They can take it.

It's just that this sort of thing isn't good for the people doing it. It might be politically useful but it distorts a clear picture of the world for those who do it. It helps to give us candidates like Bachmann, Perry, and Cain whose failures should have been pretty obvious to see coming if we were able to step back from the crowd and take an honest look at them.

This mindset stops people from asking difficult questions about themselves. That's the real problem.

I think you have it the other way around. The problem is that many if not most americans lack critical thinking skills now. That's what you get after a lifetime of being taught to regurgitate "facts" in school or listening to people tell you what to think or buy on tv/radio. Maybe they might sense they're getting f**ked over by a few cartels (hmos, "education," contractors, bailed out banks/corps, etc.) and get angry over that. Maybe occasionally they might even realize those are government subsidized and lash out at them too, for a little bit. But then they quickly re-direct the anger to team red or blue or some other "out" group (whites, blacks, gays, mexicans, atheists, city dwellers, fundies, whatever) like they've been taught to. That's why you get "protest" movements like OWS or the Teabaggers. If they could do what you're talking about they wouldn't have that mindset.

It is bad form to attack the media in general. If one has certifiable evidence of bias, then one can generalize about a specific outlet. A politician who finds that the media dislike the content of his campaign or his personal life had better recognize that the Presidency is for one person in 300 million, even if you cut that in half for persons disqualified for being under 35 or not being a natural-born citizen. 

America is severely polarized on cultural lines, and everyone knows that President Obama isn't going to pick up the vote of poor, undereducated, rural white people in the Ozarks, central or southern Appalachia, or the Deep South. A few decades ago they could vote for Democrats like Carter or Clinton, but even that may be past.  Everyone also knows that a southern reactionary is going to do badly in the urban North and among non-white minorities. It all comes down to the 'swing voters' who now seem to be white, middle-class suburbanites.  It used to be that white middle-class suburban voters voted with their bosses whom they trusted. But that trust is gone.