I noticed (via Tapped) a hilarious column in yesterday’s Boston Globe. Let’s call it today’s “must-read.”
In it, Globe columnist Brian McGrory explained, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, that political reporters have identified the real problem with elections — those damn voters. As McGrory put it:
Voters, come in, please. Take a seat. We need to have a little talk.
Listen, you’ve done some great work over the years, you really have. The entire country owes you a huge debt of thanks. But on behalf of the news media, the Washington pundits, various powerbrokers, assorted columnists, and esteemed talking heads, I have some news that it doesn’t give me any pleasure to give.
You’re fired.
No, I know, it seems abrupt, but it really isn’t. We’ve been thinking about this since we caught you having that illicit fling with John McCain. The bottom line is, you’re unreliable, and this electoral system needs to be fixed.
Do you have any idea how many millions of dollars we spend on polls? We have national polls, state polls, tracking polls, rolling polls, rolling tracking polls, tracking rolling polls. And when we use irrefutable science to determine exactly who wins what race and why, you willfully ignore the memo. So there’s the problem: You’re not paying enough attention, and I don’t mean to the boring candidates. To us.
You’re sure not paying enough attention to the roughly 50,000 fund-raising stories and analyses we’ve provided over the last year that have told you exactly why Howard Dean is going to walk away with the nomination or why Wes Clark still has a chance or why John Kerry has none at all. Forgive my tone of incredulity, but how could you possibly ignore the crucial fact that some candidates can already afford to advertise in New Mexico while others can’t?
So let me ask one simple question: Do you have any idea how much it costs to house and feed R. W. “Johnny” Apple and the rest of the New York Times newsroom in Des Moines for a week? Are you aware of what the Suites of 800 Locust charges a night? Do you know that cuts of beef at the 801 Steak and Chop House run somewhere north of $35 apiece? You think Richard’s Bistro in Manchester is cheap?
And for what, all this money? So you can vote any way you want and make us look like idiots?
There’s more. Go take a look.