I recently found this article, pointing out the absurdities of press coverage of the election, and comparing idiots in an attempt to crown the lord-high nincompoop.
If there’s one criticism of the campaign press that has really held true all across the board throughout this race, it’s this tendency to kid-glove politicians, make excuses for them, make them seem more legitimate than they really are. It is important for the public to remember that a campaign reporter who would call the campaign a bogus, shallow farce—who would say, for instance, that the campaign is a mindless exercise in mudslinging diversion held between a pair of toothy millionaires with nearly identical plans for the management of the country—is also saying that his own job is bogus. Therefore the opposite instinct is usually in evidence in campaign coverage. The race is described as something profound, a true clash of ideals, led by two worthy men of unfathomable depth of character.
Thus you will sometimes see a situation where Bush will get up on stage and stumble around for 20 minutes like a man who’s been breathing out of a bag for a year—and when it comes time to actually describe the things he says, someone like Philip Gourevitch will call him a “master of the American vernacular.”
