Politics as Theater

A very powerful column in today's Washington Post by Jim Hoagland.

Politics as Theater

Consider the following points from the piece:

It is not so disturbing that the national political discourse has become detached from civility. That has been true, and not fatal, at other periods in American history....

...What is disturbing is that the national political discourse is increasingly detached from reality. The emotionalism and character assassination practiced by both sides -- the clamor in the echo chamber around Sheehan is only one example -- is mistaken for "politics."

Instead of turning out more engineers or scientists, American society seems at times more geared to forming consumers, producers and critics of a particularly bombastic kind of political theater, which comes in entertainment and information flows that are increasingly hard to distinguish....

...Too often we now get more of our information from stories or broadcast clips about television ads on issues than stories or clips about those issues themselves....They are then followed by news stories and columns that spin the spin -- that hash out how effective, or not, the presentational values were.