Its no wonder we all grew up to be voracious readers, newshounds, political junkies and house project addicts….or some combination of these quirks.
My dad was an old fashioned journalist. By this I mean he did his own research. In the ‘60s through the ‘90s, Googling did not yet exist. To discover what was known about any topic, one had to seek out those who knew about it and read their publications and talk to them. Journalists of this era used to seek out knowledgeable people on as many sides of an issue and interview them all. Anyone who tried to say ‘consensus’ would have lost his press badge.
Despite the fact that we were little kids, Dad used to discuss whatever article he was working on at the dinner table. Mom was his first editor and he picked everything apart with her. We kids learned to shut up (sort of) and listen. We also learned to carry on six different conversations while listening raptly to the scary, weird, fascinating things Dad was telling Mom. This is a skill that sticks with you and our family reunions are usually a chaotic cacophony of conversation.
So it was hard for me to give up the news.
I didn’t really give it up; I just had to stop listening, reading or watching those idiots after 5:00 at night.
I do read the news online. I follow links to the source, so as to get an idea of what’s really happening. I’m skeptical, having grown up with a guy who was present at too many historical events that were later spun in ways that he says never happened.
My daughter in law is a cowboy; when she tells me she can’t watch westerns because no one in Hollywood knows enough to get the details correct, I believe her.
My brother is a Navy Officer and when he tells me that TV and movies can’t even get military uniforms correct, I believe him.
My sister in law is an actress. When she told me that Bill Cosby hit on her when she did a guest shot on the Cosby show when she was fifteen, I believe her.
My husband is a college basketball coach and when he tells me that he can tell whether a talking head pontificating on athletics knows his shit in a sentence or two, I believe him.
So when my journalist Dad tells me that a movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Reader’s Digest are bullshit, I believe him.
These folks all have credibility with me. This doesn't mean they're never wrong; credibility means that when they make a mistake, they can acknowledge and correct it. Credibility is a quickly dissipating commodity in modern life.
President Barack Obama has none.
None. As in zip, zero, nada.
Bill Clinton had none with me. Why? Because the guy lied over and over and over. I expect politicians to lie about what wonderful things they can do for me but that guy took it to such an obnoxious extreme it became impossible for me to hear his voice or look at his fat face without feeling sick. Especially when he opened his slimy yack to denigrate his political opponents as ‘mean spirited’ and ‘greedy’ because I knew he meant me. He was telling my kids and their friends, who were just old enough to start paying attention to politics (and who certainly paid attention to any story featuring oral sex) that those of us who opposed him were just mean, greedy and most likely sexually deprived.
Obama is different.
Like Clinton, he destroyed his cred but Obama’s lies are much scarier than those of Big Fat Bill. Clinton’s lies were (are) always self-serving in a way you could understand, like you understand why a six year old holding a sling shot would deny breaking a window.
O’s lies are more along the lines of “Yeah, the bridge is safe…you go first, I got your back.”
All of this is to simply explain why I didn’t watch the SOTU last night.
I’m too old to waste an hour of my time or a whit of my attention on a man I wouldn’t trust with a pair of safety scissors.