Getting HowardDean-ed

Was watching a cable news show back in early 2004 and this guy, Howard Dean, is being interviewed.  He starts saying some really interesting things.  He’s running for President.  I am starting to take the bait.

Then he says something along the lines of “yeah, and if I get in, I am going to regulate the media.”

At which point I look at my wrist as if there was a watch there and start counting, “10… 9… 8…”.

He was cooked – it was just a matter of time.

The fork was put into him when he came in third at the Iowa Primary Caucus.  He lost, but still had a spirited following.  After 9 years of hindsight, check out this video and lemme know what you think.

I remember seeing this and thinking if I was coaching a team and we played really hard and came up short, would I do anything much different?  Probably not.

In any other scenario, I think it would have been passed out of the way as a guy rallying the troops.  In an environment where you have a potential stated rival to the media it was played much differently.

He was vilified over and over to the point where he had to leave the race; all because of, “The Scream”.

I am starting to wonder if something along the same lines is happening today.  The Obama Administration becomes embroiled in a controversy with an AP Reporter.  The government is looking into what a reporter is doing.  All of a sudden it seems like the media is closing ranks and the coverage of this issue and others starts to gain “traction”.

But no one in the public really cared that the media was being watched.

Now a flurry of reports that the government has been spying on everyone via Verizon and other telecoms has the 4^th Estate apoplectic.  The government is evil and it’s 1984!

We have a traitor being picked up by the Chinese or the Russians. (I wonder if we will get a draft pick in next month’s Supplemental Amateur Spy Draft?)

Even if ‘they’ (read: Government Agencies) have all this data – are there enough people to go through every call to my wife when I call to ask if there is anything we need from the ACME (pronounced ac-a-me)?  (I realize that isn’t the point.)

The Enigmatic Obama Administration is finally in something like hot water.  An ecstatic GOP wants to boil lobsters.  And the media wants to turn up the gas.

Hello?  Didn’t the Patriot act get passed by both parties and get re-authorized?  Did the media read out loud to the rest of us so we could understand it?  Did they get us all worked up about it to stop it back then?

What the “Media” has forgotten – or has been too busy preening to its own cameras to realize – is that the rest of us have already lost out privacy rights.  We look at You Tube videos of people whose Civil Rights are ignored as if it is sport.  (I am almost waiting for an ESPN Channel to be dedicated to it.)  But the “Media” shrugs and nothing is done.

And think about it again for a moment – we sold our privacy with ACME Shoppers Cards to get a few cents off milk or candy.  We sell ourselves every time we click on an internet ad then some marketer analyzes the demographics we represent.

Every time we load an app on our smart phones they specifically tell us – “Hey – none of the stuff you are doing is private.”

And it is used for what?  Oh – that is right – to be sold back to the media so they can sell us more stuff.  So tell me – what is really private?

I would almost bet that you could get elected to Congress with a platform of, “OK the government is spying on us, but if you you elect me – I can stop Rachel from Cardholder Services from calling you at all hours.”

The “Media” feeds us the long series of howling jackaled masqueraded circus acts we are supposed to call “Leaders” – and expects us not to be numb when THEIR ox is being gored.

Well, even if the “Media” gets President Obama (whatever that means) how does anyone replacing him do anything different?  Does Joe Biden or any member of the GOP du jour do anything different?  These issues are so systemic and pervasive you would need a complete political, governmental, and media overhaul.

The “Media” has frittered away its defenders in the public when it forgot its role.  The “Media’s” special place was to defend the rest of us.

Sorry guys.  Spring is warming into summer and the Phillies are finally figuring out which end of the bat to use.