Oh to be in one of the grown-up countries where elections last 6 weeks instead of the USA's usual 15 to 24 plus months. Glenn Greenwald points out some of the disadvantages of our utter stupidity:
From now until next November, chatter, gossip and worthless speculation about the candidates' prospects will drown out most other political matters. Obviously, at least in theory, presidential campaigns are newsworthy. But consider the impact from the fact that they dominate media coverage for so long, drowning out most everything else.
A presidential term is 48 months; that the political media is transfixed by campaign coverage for 18 months every cycle means that a President can wield power with substantially reduced media attention for more than 1/3 of his term. Thus, he can wage a blatantly illegal war in Libya for months on end, work to keep U.S. troops in Iraq past his repeatedly touted deadline, scheme to cut Social Security and Medicare as wealth inequality explodes and thereby please the oligarchical base funding his campaign, use black sites in Somalia to interrogate Terrorist suspects, all while his Party's Chairwoman works literally to destroy Internet privacy -- all with virtually no attention paid.
Photo of President Obama's campaign bus via
Liberal Politics News
