January 14, 2008
No more brunch for Rush
As the media continues to make itself look foolish trying to cover the Presidential election as if it were a sporting event, the actual candidates are making the rounds and trying to talk down about each other without seeming like they’re talking bad about anyone. It’s a delicate art that the players at this level all pull off most of the time, but just because the election is a competition doesn’t mean it should be treated like a big Monday night game.
We don’t need an election pre-game show with the “experts” making their predictions. That’s fun for games but an election is news and the people providing it should act like they’re performing the important service they are and provide the public with an understanding of what the candidates are doing, saying and being as they try to win the election.
Unfortunately we’re treated to an ever-polarized contingent of wannabe seers who tell us what will happen in the race, but little about who is running and what they propose to do if elected. When they’re wrong, they laugh, give us one of those “aw shucks” should shrugs and go right back to explaining what will happen next. They tend to forget that news is about the recent past and not the near future.
When they’re not busy telling us what we’re gonna do next, they love to tell us about the cosmetic details of the candidates, whatever little “humanizing” gaffes they can catch on tape or whatever the heck this “electability” thing I keep hearing about is. But every so often a “news personality” decides to comment on something of substance and the results can be frightening. Here’s a recent quote from Rush Limbaugh on Barak Obama’s call for an end to partisanship and divisive politics:
… when you hear anybody, I don’t care if it’s a Republican or a Democrat, start talking about ‘ending bipartisan,’ red flags ought to go up left and right. Partisanship is ideal. Partisanship is crucial. Partisanship is based in ideals and principles, and people who hold those principles dear and are loyal to them will not compromise them. Partisanship founded the country; partisanship propels the country. What we do not need is an end to partisanship. If we finally come up with this notion of bipartisanship across the board and the country’s unified, one of two things is actually going to have happened. One side is going to have lost. So the question is, ‘Who wins?’ The question is victory, not bipartisanship. I would love the bipartisanship of liberalism as a 20 percent body of thought in this country. I could live with that kind of bipartisanship. The idea is to defeat them! Liberalism poses threats and dangers to this country, and your economic security, and your economic future. Liberals are to be defeated, not to be gotten along with. It’s the nature of American politics.
Wow, feel strongly about that Rush?
I know the man makes money selling conflict, anger, hate and the right wing status quo, but his belief that ideas in opposition to his must be “defeated” and that never compromising is a virtue is quite revealing. There is simply no way to negotiate or in any meaningful way work with someone like that. Someone with that mindset is absolutely useless, and worthless when it comes to having a functional country/world.
See, Rush’s concept ignores compromise entirely and that’s a shame. Compromise is the real agent of progress. When trying to work collaboratively with anyone you must sacrifice at least some of your ideas, and if everyone involved gives a bit, they can make real progress on the areas where they all agree. Sometimes you get more of what you want than others, but as long as you don’t completely abandon all your principles in the process, you can accomplish something. That sure seems a lot better than everyone getting nothing as you have in a polarized system.
While I’m pretty sure Rush has yet to meet a meal he doesn’t take part in, I think he should refuse to eat brunch to make a stand on his anti-compromise stance. Brunch is the compromise meal where breakfast and lunch fit as much of themselves as they can at the table, and he should want no part of it any longer. But I can only do the meal so much justice. The definitive statement on the spirit of brunch came from a Frenchman who was using bowling lessons as cover while attempting to woo another man’s wife. Here’s how he explains the compromise inherent in brunch:
It’s not quite breakfast, it’s not quite lunch, but it comes with a slice of cantaloupe at the end. You don’t get completely what you would at breakfast, but you get a good meal!
I have always maintained that there is no compromise or middle ground with extremists… they have no interest in anything but their own views. In real collaborations (and this would apply to being truly bipartisian), people give things up. Brunch is, perhaps, not a real collaboration as it encompasses all of both breakfast and lunch (in a really, really good brunch)… and often covers both time slots.
YFM