Fire up those laptops and surf to your local search engine, try “Bush earpiece” in one search session and “Kerry Pen” in the other. Numerous sites will be listed, some showing frame-by-frame stills of Candidate Kerry pulling some mystery item from his pocket and unfolding it on his podium, others will show shots of Bush during the first and second debates with a mystery lump in the back of his jacket.
Video hawks all over the world have banded together with partisans and conspiracy theorists to make the most of the Punch and Judy shows that are the debates. Though I doubt Kerry had to bring crib notes to the first debate to defeat President Bush and I hardly believe Bush would use ancient bulky wireless boxes to assist his performance, a troubling thought occurred to me: What toothpaste really would whiten my teeth to sandblasted perfection? Should I shoot for the Colgate Platinum or the Crest Whitening Expressions? Maybe I should forgo both those options and invest in an industrial strength waterpik which over the long term will provide the most gum and tooth care bang for the buck, you know, one that you have to pull start like a rusty lawnmower.
Yes, I am much more concerned about my everyday routine and personal hygiene intricacies than I am any political current events. The debates, for instance are meaningless, so much so that they haven’t affected the incumbent at all! At least that’s the line voters have been fed. But a recent poll by USA TODAY/CNN/GALLUP confirms that Presidential contender John Kerry has pulled ahead while he reminds voters of the mistakes of this Administration – by a whole point. What is really interesting to watch, however, is President Bush’s approval rating slumping to 47%. So that’s where all the Kerry ground has been made! To be fair, this is against the backdrop of Bush approval ratings that have failed to dip below 51% since the RNC.
Of course, the same USA TODAY/CNN/GALLUP poll reported that 42% of Americans surveyed still believe Saddam Hussein was somehow involved with 9/11. This after the 9/11 Commission Report, after S.O.D. Rumsfield said he hadn’t seen any “strong”, “hard evidence”, and after Senator Kerry well articulated the fact during the first presidential debates. Obviously, some people have been paying too much attention to their teeth.
What really gets me is not that some still don’t know / don’t care about Saddam’s unlinking to 9 / 11 but that people, in general, have been unable to discern certain truths about policy promoted by the government while at the same time arguing that politics don’t affect them. The “ignorance is bliss” mentality is more pervasive than floss these days as people continually rely upon some magic tooth whitener such as the media to keep them informed of current events and “feeling clean”.
Similarly, the Bush earpiece / Kerry pen is illustrative of Americans who do not see with their own eyes or feel with their own hearts as they blindly accept video opportunist propaganda or even the assertion by campaign naysayers who claim that anything negative we think we see the candidates doing is actually nothing at all.
Sources:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/Bush_Job_Approval.htm, Bush Job Approval
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000653667, Media Matters? Poll shows 1 in 10 still believe Saddam involved in 9/11
USA Today, October 12, 2004, Bush’s Approval Ratings Slipping