There are days when it is quite difficult to watch MSNBC during the day.
Today is such a day -- a day in which the coverage of the Affordable Care Act is nearly 100 percent about the horse race that the Beltway media thinks America is engrossed with.
Today's coverage is all about whether the Obama Administration will get glitches in the website fixed before Republicans are able to score points and win ... something.
There has been endless speculation about how the GOP could have fared so much better in its quest to destroy Obamacare if only it hadn't stumbled in the government shutdown fiasco.
But wait ... now they have an opening! Can they take advantage and score points? If Obama has to extend the enrollment period or postpone the date that fines kick in will that mean the GOP has scored a victory?
And Obama has only three weeks to get the website to work or else the GOP will have won ... some amorphous something or other.
Chuck Todd was preening about how Jon Stewart had slam dunked Kathleen Sebelius.
To which I can only say ... Who gives a fuck?
People's lives, as well as their good health, are at risk every day that the insurance/health care system that we have had to endure in this country continues to be denied to millions.
This might be a game to Beltway insiders but it isn't a game to the uninsured.
Yes, the website is a problem. Yes, it should have been better designed and tested. Yes, whatever doofus is responsible should be canned.
And, naturally, the Beltway media -- which has the attention span of a 2-year-old (no offense to 2-year-olds) -- latches onto that because looking at the deeper issue -- the millions of Americans who suffer and/or die each year from lack of health care -- is too fucking hard. Turning everything into a horse race is much easier.
When it's a horse race all you have to do is get one Democrat and one Republican to come on your show and ... Voila! ... you have a half hour filled.
And this is the daytime lineup of MSNBC indulging in this, so you can just imagine what's going on at CNN, Fox, et al.
But it isn't an opportunity for breathless analysis and speculation. It is just a fucking website. Websites crash. Shit happens and then it gets fixed.
Earlier this year I bought a new laptop with Windows 8, which is almost as popular as New Coke. It is just now getting fixed. Shit happened and now it is getting fixed.
But I don't hear anyone screaming for Microsoft to be dismantled.
Apple keeps prompting me to download the new iOS7 software. Fat chance. I'll wait till it's been road tested a while. Doesn't mean I want Apple driven into bankruptcy.
I have apps on my phone that are constantly prompting me to update them with various bug fixes. Shit happens and then it gets fixed.
Except in the Beltway media. When shit happens there, it just brings on more shit.