Recently GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry got-got at an editorial meeting flubbing up how many court justices there are and mispronouncing Sonia Sotomayor's name. The clips have been spread throughout the media like the rest of Perry's mental glitches that have been crippling his campaign this year.
This is not the first time we have seen a GOP Candidate loose their minds in a recorded editorial interview. As recently as last month the Herman Cain Libya flub raised the same questions about the legitimacy of his now suspended campaign.
What exactly is happening at these meetings that make politicians loose their marbles? Might it be that these are exhausted human being rather than characters on TV that both the media and political campaigns make politicians out to be? Or do these people simply have no idea what the hell they are talking about?
Perry has reportedly dropped the ball in almost every form possible. He forgot what government agency's he wanted to cut in a debate, looked crazy drunk at a speech and now the editorial meeting are just a hand full of examples. It's hard to make the case that this man is prepared to run for president let alone run the country.
Herman never made much of a case for himself either. It seemed that his answer to every problem was his, now infamous, 999 plan. No one could get a straight answer out of him about nearly anything else especially foreign policy. Wether he had a plan or not we may never know because his campaign never seemed to be ready to talk about it.
In today's non-stop coverage of these political campaigns it is hard to get an idea of who these candidates really are. Many American's are experiencing the race via TV or through video clips online. The entire GOP presidential race and politics in general, have become a heavily scripted and highly calculated production. When these productions go down hill it becomes major news.
This political production feeds not only the news media but nearly every facit of entertainment in general. It's almost like politics have become the newest reality show creating mellow dramas within mellow dramas. Instead of talking about the issues and the platforms politician's stand on major news organisations and the American public are obsessed with sound bites, mistakes, outrageous out of context quotations and embarrassing moments.
Not to say that this is anything new, ever since the existence of radio polotics have become a show of sorts, with it's writers, producers and publicist. However in this rich media landscape it seems that the show never stops and no one get's any slack.
Not to say that this production is not interesting. It makes people that would have never thought about politics before stare at it through lime tinted glasses. For many political news comes from satire and comedy.
The real question is can we really except our politicians to answer questions on foreign policy, the supreme court or economics when the voting public not only think that these subjects are boring but have little interest in hearing or talking about them. As much as high minded political junkies would like more people to watch long form speeches, read transcripts of interviews and watch CSPAN more than CNN that is not going to happen.
Being informed is a hell of a lot more work than being entertained, some simply don't have the time and other's simply don't have the drive.
