Enjoy It While It Lasts

I got lucky and scored some good tickets to a Laker game the other night. They played Sacramento who I am a fan of because I lived in that area for several years. If you haven't tried it, suffice to say that it's not a comfortable thing to sit amongst a bunch of enthusiastic home team fans and want the other team to win. Making matters worse, Sacramento lead most of the game and in a dramatic ending won by a single point. I had to choose the middle ground and didn't root for either team because I didn't want to subject my family members to a fracas. It took a lot of self restraint and took a little of the fun out of it but it was a great game with mediocre defense which provided for a lot of made plays which is my favorite thing to watch.
What is so remarkable is that no matter how breathtakingly good the visiting teams plays were, it was met with dead silence.
To me the game of basketball can take on a near performance art quality when played well and viewed up close. But their is no mistaking that, all being equal, your favorite teams well executed plays are the best.
Being the political season and me being glued to it, you had to expect that I would transform this into something to do with politics, right? Well sure enough, my point is that like basketball fans the media and everyone else on the planet is biased about their picks in this Presidential election. I find that only when this is really taken to heart and accepted as fact can I step back and see this thing for what it really is.
For example, and it is hard to say this as an Obama supporter but, Saturday Night Live had it right in their season opener suggesting that the media was biased against Senator Clinton. To me it was very obvious. There were many excuses but I don't think any reasonable person could deny it. SNL being a New York City product and treasure consciously or unconsciously came to their Senators aid in pointing out the obvious. There has now been a call of foul from Obama supporters that SNL is biased against Senator Obama.
With a little introspection many in the media have now rushed to the starboard side of the S.S. Neutral. She'll likely list there for a while until a bigger story comes along.
One thing you can be sure of is that the power brokers, the ones who are compelled to put their opinions out there in an effort to convince others, be it the media or through the media, have already made up their minds. One fortunate byproduct is that this is as close to egalitarianism as we ever get around here because the common folk have something they need very badly and that is our vote. It's usually the other way around so being unaccustomed to this role and unsure how to convince us they make plenty mistakes. These stumbles and blunders tell us a lot about them and their real intent and makes watching that much more fun. Enjoy it while it lasts.