Why do Republicans continually blame “the media” for their impending disaster that will be the 2008 presidential election?  It’s because the average Republican isn’t very bright.

Let’s look closely at what the media really is.  First and foremost, it is a shining example of free market capitalism, and you won’t hear any Republicans bashing that.  More accurately, the media is a collection of businesses, some small and some large, and these businesses play by the exact same capitalistic rules that all businesses in America adhere to.  Time Magazine, for instance, is a media business.  Time Magazine has a product, which it sells to the public, and collects revenue for.  It has hundreds of employees who produce and distribute the product.  Time Magazine Inc. also has stockholders – just like every other public corporation, and it pays taxes to the government which are a percentage of its profits.  Similarly, The Wall Street Journal is a business, as well as the Knight Ridder newspapers.  CNN and FOX are businesses.  The National Review is a business.  The Hoover Digest, an example of “the media” which no true conservative would ever criticize… yes, it too is a business. 

“The media” is actually free market capitalism at its finest.  So why are Republicans blaming capitalism for their current electoral woes?  Don’t Republicans really like capitalism?  How could a majority of conservatives think free market capitalism is favoring Barack Obama and being unfair to John McCain?  Free markets are being unfair?  What?  Since when?  Isn’t life itself unfair, Mr. Republican?  Have conservatives gone hopelessly senile in sympathy with their candidate?  Is 2008 the year of “sympathetic senility” or something?  Or is it simple Sarah stupidity?

And what, pray tell, is the alternative?  A controlled media?  Perhaps a socialist media?  Should we regulate media products and markets with big-government oversight?  Doesn’t this directly contradict your vaunted Reagan-style conservatism, Mr. Republican?  Of course it does.  Which brings us back to the crux of the matter:  Republicans aren’t very bright, even when it comes to their own concepts.  They just don’t think things through to their logical conclusion.  The truth is, Republicans would gladly suspend their cherished free market ideals and become card-carrying Communists if it meant they could quash the liberal voices in a perfectly legitimate, perfectly lawful, and Constitutionally supported example of free market capitalism.

Republicans are whiners – it’s just that simple.  They claim to love the game of five-card freedom, but when the river card ruins their hand, they complain about the deal being unfair.  Our current financial catastrophe, and the Bush administration’s hypocritical support of government bailouts for bankers-gone-wild, is just more evidence that even the best conservative minds fall embarrassingly short of understanding the capitalist beast they have unchained.

The fact is, “the media” is not the problem.  The problem is, the Republicans don’t believe in educating voters.  This is the party that voted against stem cell research, wants to abandon our public school systems, and now wishes to teach religious fairy-tale bullshit in science classes.  The problem is, once again, that Republicans are not very bright.

If the United States of America was populated by an educated liberal majority, the effect of “the media” on politics and how people vote would be regulated very effectively;  not by Big Government or a Politburo, but by people’s educated brains.  Educated brains are less susceptible to Limbaugh-style propaganda, or Sharpton-style posturing.  Educated brains are capable of filtering information and arriving at logical conclusions, even when the information is sparse or slanted, or downright dishonest.  Bad information is still information to an educated and perceptive mind.  With proper education, the media’s effect on how people think would become more like a public library, where opinions of all different flavors are available, and welcome, and where people are free to choose what they pay attention to.  If people are taught critical thinking skills, the media becomes more of an information resource, and much less of a brainwashing tool for the unscrupulous and controlling.

The Internet is rapidly becoming this new information resource:  the new “media.”  The American voting public is, for the first time in history, essentially free to choose what websites they visit, whose political points of view they hear, and ultimately what information their brains receive.  Instead of getting angry at “the media” for Barack Obama’s overwhelming victory in 2008, why don’t Republicans start blaming the Internet instead?  For instance, “America’s high-speed electronic communications network is being unfair to John McCain and Sarah Palin.”

That doesn’t sound very bright, does it?

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