A Boston Tea Party …(Gridlock TV)

I am a big fan of talk radio and cable news shows. Shows like “Hannity and Combs”, “Hardball”, “Meet the Press”, “Crossfire”, “Scarborough Country”, and “This Week with George Stephonapolous” usually have a guest from each party debating the issues of the day. For a independent logical thinker like myself, these shows continually annoy the heck out of me.

Parts of each show contain cardboard cutout formats. A topic is proposed and as soon as it is opened for discussion by the host, the answers from each party will be as predictable as the sun coming up each morning. Am I the only one this annoys? What the hell good is it to continually know the respective views on a topic before the guests even utter a word? There are a few certainties I can give you if you are new to the debate shows. They are as follows:

1. All Republicans will never criticize fellow Republicans.
2. All Democrats will never criticize fellow Democrats.
3. All Democrats will not agree with any Republican idea.
4. All Republicans will not agree with any Democratic idea.
5. A question will rarely get answered directly.

Another annoying part of these cookie cutter shows is that the host will at times allow a guest to spew nothing but pure B.S. on a particular topic. Most of them must be well studied enough on the topics of the day to understand the basic facts of a topic yet they will sit across the table from a guest and allow them to give out huge amounts of misinformation. What good does that do? News shows should be a place to go to get facts not just anyone’s opinion without regard to facts. On the few occasions where a host calls on a guest to answer a question directly, the guest somehow worms his or her way out of it. Why not cut-off the guest’s microphone if they are unwilling to answer without spin? Why not tell your audience that what the guest said was not factual? Why not challenge the guests? My hunch is that if you did, the host would have no guests. Just because we have gridlock in Washington does that mean we should have gridlock TV? Shouldn’t the host or hosts be more than just moderators?

In many ways gridlock TV is no better than the crap we get in our left leaning newspapers. Anyone in search of the truth is left to find it for themselves. Gridlock TV contributes to the concept of “versions of the truth”. For example if you want the truth on Social Security you will not find it on cable news shows. The host won’t demand it and the guests will distort it. We have reality TV all over the evening programming; maybe someday we can have a single factual cable news show where only guests that value truth would be allowed. Now that would be groundbreaking television. For now “The O’Reilly Factor” might be as close as we get. He seems to be the only one who doesn’t find it an absolute that a respective guest needs to be offset with a guest from the other party.