American media consciousness: Bad or Squeeby?

| | Comments (0)

In a recent article called Generation Squid, by Rolling Stone writer, Matt Taibbi, he talks about the American electorate's inability to be rational. The story focuses of Barack Obama and the recent controversy pertaining to Pastor Jeremiah Wright. Taibbi explains calls panicky American voters "squeebs," an adorable mutant love-child of a squid and a dweeb. He opines as the election is dragging on from scandal to scandal the race for the nomination and the election at large are turing into "a Darwinian contest — survival of the Squeebiest."

Obama responded to the Wright controversy swift and aggressively. He spoke about how his campaign has been seen as "an exercise in affirmative action." He later said that Wright's comments, punctuated with Wright chanting, "God Damn America," would "denegrate the greatness and goodness of our nation."

He went on to say that Wright's comments "expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country. A view that sees white racism as endemic and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know that is right with America."

Obama later explained how he could disown Wright just as easily as he could disown the black population. A statement that Jon Stewart mocked later that night saying that at that instant, a politician talked about race with Americans as though they were adults.

Stewart's joke cuts back to the heart of Taibbi's point, that Americans are spineless and malleable when it comes to their media consciousness. They both might be right, but the only way to know is if we're talking about an equally insignificant episode next week, and the smart money says we will be.

Leave a comment