Rambling about the media and Sarah Palin, and the interactions between them

A friend online stated that he thought the attacks on Sarah Palin have been over-the-top. I'm not sure, but he may be right. She has certainly said some outrageous things, and her constant associating of Obama with Ayers was also over the top (not to mention part of a larger tendency among the members of the right wing to associate Obama with anti-Americanism, which I do consider a dangerous set of accusations). If she wasn't such a spotlight monger, she certainly wouldn't be receiving so much negative attention.

The problem I really see is that both sides are too eager to turn off their brains and feed on these media hogs. Because I am more familiar with what I see on the left, there are tons of stories on shows such as Keith Olbermann's which focus on the outrageous antics of Glenn Beck, Palin, Rush Limbaugh, with little attention paid to whether or not these people are actually influential in the way things turn out.

In the end, the attention is warranted, but it's too circusy. Rather than have a field day with every silly rant that Beck makes on TV, the serious matter is that not only to thousands of people take his word as solid truth, but our national, state, and local lawmakers often use similar arguments in their decision making. It affects politics, which means it affects us.

I have yet to hear a truly unreasonable negative comment aimed at Sarah Palin. However, I think such things are sucking up too much energy, both in terms of those who really wish to make change in the state of things, and probably the national ethos in general. To extend that to its inevitable conclusion, it affects the whole world.

The people with the power to change public policy and foreign affairs activities are the ones we should be concerned with. Media clowns didn't start the war on Iraq or cause 9/11. People with weapons or people with governmental powers did. That's where the focus should be.