David

Karki

Read Davids bio and previous columns here

January 14, 2008

The Press and the Primaries: A Tale Told by Shakespearean Idiots

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

- Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5.

In response to Macbeth, I give you New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton pulls out a surprising narrow victory, and John McCain gets his usual one primary win before inevitably fading in far less liberal states. Yawn. In both cases, the utter meaninglessness of both results will be ignored by a ridiculous, foaming-at-the-mouth media turning molehills into Mount Everest.

Let's examine the Democratic side. Hillary loses, but not huge, in Iowa. This was a state she never polled that well in, and the result should have been pretty well expected. Yet the media went nuts over Barack Obama's win, to the point of speculating Hillary might drop out if New Hampshire went poorly.  Shyeah, right. The most selfishly ambitious woman in history, who thinks she's entitled by birth to eight more years in the Oval Office, 22^nd Amendment be damned, is even considering for one second dropping out. Is the media on crack?

Then in New Hampshire, a state she was expected to do well in, the polls in the days leading up to last week’s primary go south. Not surprising, given the sudden spate of negative stories. But when the votes are counted, Hillary gets a narrow win. Narrower, in fact, that what one would have expected until the manufactured Obama Tsunami came along.

Yet, for having essentially met expectations in Iowa and finishing slightly lower than expectations in New Hampshire, what is the storyline coming out of there? HILLARY – THE COMEBACK GIRL! She gets up off the mat and repeats her husband's feat in 1992! (Insert regal trumpets blaring for the Empress here.)

Excuse me from writing this column for a moment while I retch.

OK, I'm back. I feel much better now.

As for McCain, he won New Hampshire by a much larger margin in 2000, and then promptly fell flat in South Carolina and lost to President Bush. South Carolina is no friendlier ground to him this time around – probably less, actually – and Mitt Romney will challenge him in Michigan, which lost half its delegates as punishment for moving its primary up.

After that, it's hard to see where McCain will get a substantial number of additional delegates. Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani are playing the come-in-late strategy for Super Tuesday, and Romney has almost unlimited self-financing. McCain had to take out a $3 million loan, and no amount of free media adulation – and he gets plenty – can make up for that severe a lack of campaign funds.

Yet, for having won one primary by a closer margin than eight years ago, in a state pre-disposed to favor him, after several days of the media pumping him up with polls, and having no logical route to victory and little money, the media now declares McCain the front-runner. Sigh . . .

Can we please finally see that everything the media spews is pure, unadulterated, 100 percent pure, Grade-A bull cookies? And that we'd all do far better to ignore all the oral diarrhea coming from the talking heads, since even if it all happened to be true somehow, it would still be so absurdly overblown that it couldn't possibly be taken seriously.

Portions of two small states with very un-representative populations have voted, perhaps 1 percent of the delegates have been selected, and the media is trying to declare things over. This candidate is the “front-runner,” that candidate is “finished.” This is roughly akin to saying this weekend's NFL playoff games are over when one team kicks a field goal to go ahead 3-0 early in the first quarter. Which is to say, it's insane and farcical on its face.

Both of these nominating contests are a long way from being over. And neither a compressed primary schedule nor a media consumed by its own self-importance and internal biases is going to change that.

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. I think Ol' Bill had it just about right.

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

Click here to talk to our writers and editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.

To e-mail feedback about this column, click here. If you enjoy this writer's work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry it.

This is Column # DKK098. Request permission to publish here.