The Presidential campaign coverage in the United States is starting to remind me of another time-tested feature of television news – bizarre health warnings and ominous medical reports. Allow me to explain.

You know how one night you’ll be watching the news, and they’ll say something like “Red wine promotes heart health and can increase your lifespan by up to 4 years!”….and then two weeks later, the same dead-behind-the-eyes newscaster is telling you “Red wine slowly dissolves the human heart and has been directly linked to bone cancer and rabies”. HUH?!?! Same thing with milk – one week, it’s the familiar and trusted source of calcium, the frosty friend of cookies everywhere. The next week, milk is shot through with some terrifying hormone or chemical, and you find that all these years milk has been thinning your blood and insidiously undermining your public speaking skills. What’s a terrified citizen to do?

Same goes for Obama’s public perception. One day (yesterday, for example), he’s riding high on a veritable tsunami wave of public adulation. He can do no wrong. In fact, the only thing he’s criticized for is being loved too much. Then, suddenly, the coverage seems to turn on a dime. Today, he’s arrogant, over-reaching, self-righteous, a braggart. He’s overstepping his bounds; just who does he think he is? Hell, who is he, anyways?

So it goes. On the morrow the pendulum shall swing again. The 24-hour news cycle will repackage our own opinions and spit them back in our face. Yesterday we thought Obama was great; today, apparently, we think he’s got no business even wearing a suit.

P.S. Is anyone else disturbed by the ever-increasing prominence of cable news in electoral politics? It seems like the two candidates are battling more over how much coverage they get, rather than actually battling over issues or policy points. I wouldn’t be surprised if the losing candidate ultimately blames the amount of coverage on his loss. That’s all they argue about now! And have we as a voting public put too much faith in the 24-hour news cycle? Do any of us actually research a candidate anymore, or do we just wait for an easy-to-digest, cardboard cutout caricature of them to be paraded before us?

How different would an American election be if the voting public boycotted cable news and had to seek out the candidates, study their policies, and go see them speak in person? It’s a rhetorical question, Doobie.