A big website (we will decline in promoting it further) now has a headline declaring that no bible was used at the Obama re-swearing in — ushering that site into special honored status in TMV’s world-famous Get A Life Club.
Actually, we’ve awarded it memberships before, but the site’s headlines and track record for journalistic accuracy on some of its inside reports really require that we give them a chair — or even a bleacher.
Just think about that headline. What does it tell you? It tells you this:
I live in a condo. I love my condo but after the condo experience for some 25 years would not recommendo condo living to anyone who can avoid it. Why? Because condos operate under an association and as Seinfeld uses comedy to show there area always some people that are looking to find something and blow it into a big issue that involves ranting and threats. There may be larger issues facing condo members or a board, but they’re looking for the battles they can start themselves and fight because they like conflict.
The now cliched joke that David Letterman uses “Get off my lawn!” refers to older people are looking for ways to complain. As anyone who lives in a condo knows, “Get off my lawn”-ers can be of all ages.
Right now the United States faces an unprecedented crisis with people losing their homes, layoffs in most industries (Warner Brothers, Google), a dying newspaper industry, banks that may need more help, people losing their life’s savings, two wars..plus a host of other issues. Many Republicans, including Arizona Sen. John McCain get it: their focus is on the problems and the fact that we’re all in this together. Some, like Rush Limbaugh, want Barack Obama to fail because it means the Republicans will get power again (pish posh on such things as people losing their homes, banks going under, etc.).
But, in reality, as a nation, most Americans are responsible and are focused on issues and the crisis. Overall, it’s clear that most 21st century Americans take their politics very seriously. But some Americans are more interested in politics than policy — and this is a time of crisis when everyone no matter what party should be focused on policies. The site noted above is fixated on continuing the political wars.
The bottom line? There’s a sense of deja vu here.
Many Americans have become, in essence, condo neighbors looking for ways to go after those who live next to them or battle with the board.
To those who will now try to turn why-he-didn’t-use-a-bible into an issue or accuse Obama of hating religion because he didn’t, we bestow membership in our Get A Life Club.
And we give that website a bleacher (or two) for consistent performance worthy of awards.
UPDATE: The reactions to this headline on that blog-and-news-subject-setting site is starting to come in…
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.