As is typical, Joe Scarborough was beating up on Obama for being aloof (yes, the guy who organized a popular political movement, who moves people with his speeches, who shares are disdain for Washington politics is aloof), for being tired (lord, what a crime after a nasty six week race), for failing to connect with voters in Pennsylvania (except for the 45% he did connect with, up ten points from when he started) and for everything else, and then he comes up on the topic of the debate, saying that he is complaining about the tough questions.
Trouble is, they weren't tough questions, they were dumb questions, irrelevant to most voter's top concerns. 45 minutes of them, not just a smattering here and there. And to demonstrate just how wrong Obama was to turn his nose up on the question, he proved just how dumb the question was.
He went into this very convincing tirade about how Normandy veterans weren't wearing flag pins when they stormed the beach, on how Martin Luther King wasn't wearing a flag pin. Any other person would realize the contradiction, and would then understand why we can't stand such questions.
Let's put it plainly: they are stupid. So transparently stupid that you, an apologist for the candidate who won the last debate, an apologist for the frontloading of the tabloid politics in that debate, could expose that stupidity for what it was, right then and there.
Logically speaking, Scarborough just invalidated the argument that this was a tough question. It wasn't, he proved it. He also invalidated the legitimacy of the argument. How could it be a legitimate question, if so many who obviously loved their country didn't need that flag pin?
This is the reduction of politics to small symbols, to select few words, which are then elevated in importance as signs of personality above and beyond a person's manner, above their policies and decisions, above their talents as a leader.
Obama already addressed this, long ago. He already explained that he traded in the flag pin for a committment to helping his country in real terms: love shown through action, not mere symbolism. He addressed Reverend Wright in a speech that caught the nation's attention, and drew comparisons to historic speeches. He addressed the "Bitter" controversy with some pretty common sense talk about what he really meant, talk that could be backed up by 2004 footage of him making a similar argument.
Yet despite all this, the media has become and echo chamber for stupid crap, keeping it alive long after the candidate has answered the charges admirably, long after Americans have grown tired of seeing this stuff come up, with Pundits inanely talking about damage that hasn't even registered yet, speculating and bloviating about how this could lose one demographic or another.
This is the nature of the way some cover campaigns nowadays. And its's an elitist way of doing things. You think the Economy's important? Here's bowling a 37. You think Iraq is important? Here's Hillary Clinton pandering to voters by drinking shots and telling the world she loves guns. (don't even examine her record or previous statements). And why do you do that? Because you believe that such sensationalist stuff is all that the audience is able to process, or all you owe them. Let the adults discuss what's really important kiddies, we'll leave you with a coloring book and a lollypop.
People are better than that, want better than that. Sometimes they fail to live up to that, but you know what? People, given enough time, get used to a raised discourse. They get used to learning more about events, to seeing the inner workings of the government, to actually thinking about these events as they themselves write their opinions. You folks in news and punditry, you've just gotten hundreds of thousands more competitors, and as of right now, they tend to be much better informed than you.
These pundits and reporters have an advantage though, a forward position within the newsstream which allows you to sample, and even seek out your information and get paid for doing so. You can employ interns and staff researchers to dig up all kinds of information. You don't have to be losing the race on being informed.
At the end of the day, people will gravitate towards those who actually seem to add things, new and interesting things to the conversation. That's human nature. As of right now, people are frustrated with how little real information they're getting, how little real reporting is going on. But that's today. Tomorrow, they simply won't be watching. They've got better things to do with their time.