It seems that we're in a pattern. Every summer, it's another sequel. No, I'm not talking about Harry Potter 8 or Hangover Part 2, but a form of "entertainment" otherwise known as "the August of Crazy." From Gary Condit to Ground Zero Mosques. This is a pattern that we can expect yet again this August. What can we do to mitigate the damage? Better yet, what can we do to help craft the Crazy to be about a topic we care about.
It seems that we're in a pattern. Every summer, it's another sequel. No, I'm not talking about Harry Potter 8 or Hangover Part 2, but a form of "entertainment" otherwise known as "the August of Crazy."
Every year there is "the August of Crazy" and there's no reason to believe that this year won't be any different. From Gary Condit to the Ground Zero Mosque, you know the plot. Here's how it goes: a bored press, lazy long summers, no Fall TV, Congressional Recess, something in the air, too much summer sun baking the brain, too much propane from grilling. Whatever the reasons, they all seem to combine to create, like predictable annual California wildfires, a frenzy of Crazy. Last year it was The Ground Zero mosque, the year before that was the Death Panels of HCR. Several summers featured missing blonde girls.
Do you remember 2001? No, not Sept. 11, 2001 but Sept 10, 2001?
Do you remember how that summer was a non-stop, ear-bleeding, broken-record scorched Earth attack on Democratic Rep. Gary Condit over missing intern Chandra Levy? Levy was later found dead, and a completely different person was found guilty. But never you mind, Condit was never again to be a Representative and the Democrats in office were once again painted as horny bastards who lurked in the shadows of murder.
But as much as these stories hit a fevered pitch in early Sept - they are usually hitting full stride in August, but they are breaking out in July, and starting in June.
Late May/Early June is planting season for the August of Crazy harvest. What will this year's story be?
Is it peeking out yet from the grime of Drudge? Is the soiled rag of Big Government and their sponsorship of the Weiner hack and slash their August of Crazy attempt? If so, is the exposing of Breitbart as complicit in the fraud a sign of a strong early defense on our part?
What can we do to predict this story, sound the klaxons early, and help to mitigate the damage? How can we participate in playing defense?
Better yet, how can we play offense? If, like climate change, this is the new pattern and we're just gonna have to live with it, then what can we do to help craft this year's Crazy to be about a topic we care about. For one, fear sells. Two, it needs to be a mystery, something unsolvable. Or something personal. Or something prurient that stirs the imagination.
What will our story be? I think the obvious one centers around Republicans ending Medicare. Most of them are on the record. They cannot run from it. They are boxed in. If that's the story we want then the August of Crazy part needs to be something like X thousand of people will be dead by Christmas if Medicare ends now like the Republicans have voted. How many kids won't see Grandma this Christmas because of Senator McConnell's game of chicken -- putting Medicare Dismemberment on the table before debt ceiling will be raised?
Maybe it should be that the killing of Medicare and Medicaid will cause high crime. Desperate people do desperate things. They don't want to, their good people, but people will do anything for their family.
Anything to put Romney or Pawlenty in the midst of the August of Crazy would be extra tasty.
Suggestions?