The Cable News Problem

I got to the office a bit before 9AM today and within 20 minutes I felt incredibly agitated. I was pissed off. I also had a feeling of despair about the prospects for health reform. I was mad, and I also felt helpless. What was wrong? Was it just a bad case of the Mondays? Regrets for being back in the cubicle after so many weeks on the road?

Why do we have the political systems that we do? Back in the farming era, regimes competed militarily. Winners had more militarily effective total systems on average, and part their total system was their political system, which was therefore plausibly militarily effective.

Conservative radio host Glenn Beck called President Barack Obama a "full-fledged woman" and ceremonially revoked the President's "man card" for saying in a pre-Super Bowl interview that he'd have to think about letting a son play football.

I’m fascinated by the economics of the Al Jazeera acquisition of Current TV, at an eye-popping price of roughly half a billion dollars. That’s about $12,000 for each of Current TV’s 42,000 nightly viewers.

The Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus is “despondent” about the victory of the Tea Party candidate (Christine O’Donnell) over the more moderate Republican candidate (incumbent congressman Mike Castle) in the primary for Delaware’s open U.S. Senate seat.  I agree that it’s bad news.  As Ruth explains:

Glenn Beck David Frum observes the insanity of conservative attacks on Cass Sunstein:

This Saturday, right-wing protesters will gather in Washington DC for a march to oppose health reform and President Obama. The event, scheduled intentionally on September 12 to coincide with the anniversary of the day following the September 11 terrorist attacks, was conceived largely by Fox News’ Glenn Beck.