Walt Disney Company v. People of the United States

In his online comment for the April 28th print edition of The New Yorker, Hendrik Hertzberg nails what I felt and what I feel a lot of Democrats...and people in general...felt about that pigs wallow of a debate that ABC inflicted upon the nation last week:

Last Wednesday’s two-hour televised smackdown in Philadelphia between the two remaining Democratic candidates for President, which might have been billed as the Élite Treat v. the Boilermaker Belle, turned into something worse—something akin to a federal crime. Call it the case of the Walt Disney Company v. People of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (and of the United States, for that matter). Seldom has a large corporation so heedlessly inflicted so much civic damage in such a short space of time.

I hope that whomever wins the nomination and goes on to defeat John McCain in November will seriously consider reinstating the Fairness Doctrine. This debate, along with the generally shameful performance of our traditional media from the election of 2000 through today, demands redress.

If media professionals insist on abdicating their responsibility to the American public and instead act like the worst stereotypes of gossips, they need to be regulated. Or, at the very least, there needs to be a trained monkey present to whack them over the head with a Nerf bat every time they attempt to infuse water cooler talk with gravitas.

h/t Devilstower.