unconfused?

Just wanted to take a moment to clarify a couple things, since I spend a lot of time posting social and political commentary that I feel is particularly pointed or ridiculous. In that light I’ve been posting a lot of the commentary of Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. Both of these people are considered extremely liberal by the conservative media. But the reason I post their videos is because those videos happen to accurately depict or comment about a problem or issue with the political or social landscape.

If Rush Limbaugh or Gretchen Carlson or Dick Morris would accurately depict the news in commentary, I would find it just as valid to link to their work. But equally, Maddow and Olbermann do not always represent reality either. For example, recently Keith Olbermann had a number of defamatory comments to say about Scott Brown, the new Senator in Massachusetts…of which I think most of those comments are baseless, regardless of what Brown’s background or ability as a Senator may be.

So, the point is that in politics I’m looking for reason, and reasonable explanations for issues, as well as actual straight talk…and not double-standards. So, when certain Republicans talk about free-speech for the middle-class, but then legalize free-speech for a non-person (a corporation)…that is double-speak. It should be obvious that allowing a company to advertise about political issues has nothing to do with a middle-class individual’s rights. Or take people who talk about health care legislation and refer to it as “Obamacare”, even while Obama has no hand in authoring any of it…I’m less inclined to accept as authoritative much that those people say about health care reform. As a third example, when a politician just simply has his or her facts incorrect, as John McCain recently did talking about the one-way ticket of the “Underpants Bomber”…when in fact the ticket was a round-trip ticket…and gets angry when he is corrected, then I’m less likely to trust him on what he has to say about the situation considering that he is regurgitating inaccurate reporting from a news organization, and not sticking to the facts the the DHS actually has.

So…just looking for reason in the midst of the rhetoric and chaos. I can already hear many of you saying “good luck with that”. If my alternatives are to buy into punditry, to just not listen at all, or to listen and seek the truth…I’ll pick that last choice.