A Bin for Every Category

These days you aren't important if you can't be labeled something. As the schism in the American public continues to grow day in and day out it is becoming more and more clear that those on the right are going to continue leaning out to the right and those to the left will do likewise to the left until such a point that moderates finally regain control. I can't really understand why this is the case. It seems that as this last election came to pass there were lots of people who began labeling other people as being in one bin or another. If you weren't in one bin you had to be in the other but if you weren't in one bin or the other then apparently you didn't count or what you said didn't seem all that important.

Case in point is the media. Almost from the time she came into the national spotlight as McCain's VP nominee, Sarah Palin began 'binning' the media as either being the mainstream or the elitist. To this day I don't know what the actual difference between the two is. All I can think is that (based on Palin's context) the media that asks questions about world events and her opinions on them or general knowledge questions that any world leader should know are the 'elite' media and those that ask whether or not she likes to fire a full clip of 5.56 mm rounds into a moose before eating it is the mainstream media. But what's the difference? None really that I can see but apparently a difference exists.

Those in the mainstream media or on the 'right' side of the fence (and I mean that figuratively) will jump and shout like organ-grinder monkeys about how the 'elite' media will ask questions meant to ambush people like Palin. They will espouse drivel about how the 'elite' media has a double-standard when it comes to how they people like Palin. They will print endless columns about how they are biased. But I wonder; is it bias if it is the truth? Now I may get yelled at and picked on for believing that perhaps a lot of the accusations against Sarah Palin are true but do I believe for a minute that her interviews in the 'mainstream' media were any more truthful to her character? I would have rather have given Palin an Academy Award for her appearance on Fox News than the Vice Presidency.

But is the media ga-ga over Obama and is there so significant a difference or bias leaning towards the left? Perhaps so. In truth the media and the Republicans have always had a somewhat tenuous relationship. I guess it stems from the fact that the elite.. oh excuse me... the liberal... or excuse me again... the press like the Washington Post helped expose the Watergate scandal and was never too kind to Bush during his 8 years in office. But again I ask, is it truly unfair if the candidates themselves make the situtation like that? What I mean is, is it wrong to bring up Sarah Palin's kids if she herself flaunts them so much? Is it wrong to bring up Obama's smoking habit despite his having signed smoking bans? Why does it have to be only a liberal issue or a conservative issue? Aren't all issues dealing with our country inherently "American" issues? Then why don't we label it as such and end this constant 'us versus them' mentality. Maybe then the defense in the media can end and the restoration of our country can begin.