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Blame the media

Published Thursday, September 09, 2004 by seanlmccarthy | E-mail this post

Why do we have such short attention spans? Well, for a long time, I simply thought that my fellow Americans were stupid. I still believe that. But I also think that the media is partially to blame for our collective institutional memory loss. Consider the recent Republican National Convention. Mean-spirited? Sure. Intimidating? Sure. But new? Nope. Not a bit. For all of the media's collective harumphing over the GOP's claim that a vote for Kerry-Edwards = terror, remember this: Wasn't it only 40 years ago that the Democratic presidential campaign for LBJ scared us into believing that a vote for Goldwater = nuclear war? Oh, yeah. I do remember that. The girl picking flowers overshadowed by a mushroom cloud? I met her, too, over the weekend. Of course, she is 40 years older now. Don't tell her that.