o1mnikent

It’s caucus time, which means that today Americans, as they do every four years, spend an inordinate amount to time scratching their head and wondering just what, exactly, a caucus is. The only place to watch a caucus in action (sounds like a good name for a defunct 80s punk band) is C-SPAN, which offers a respite from the babbling monotony that is cable news.

Not long ago, writers for the Writers Guild of America went on strike, which forced me to watch shows other than The Daily Show, Colbert Report, and the other kind of late-night political satire that keeps the rest of my daily news intake in check. And seriously, it’s lamentable that Fred Thompson gives speeches every day without somebody to make fun of him. So I’m glad Jon Stewart & Co. is back starting this week and next.

In the meantime, I was left to endure the mind-numbing monotony that is cable news. Not just Fox News, either. All of it. Cable news is sound-byte-ization at its worst. Even the shows that attempt any kind of lengthy analysis consult panels of experts who are more interested in selling their books than contributing any kind of meaningful commentary. I found myself learning nothing and becoming more intensely frustrated. The medium of television news would not help me understand an issue any better than print or on public radio.

So I canceled my cable. No more FOX, CNN, or MSNBC. I won’t be hearing from Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olberman, and Lou Dobbs. Tonight, I’ll be watching the Iowa caucuses on C-SPAN. I’ll be gauranteed awkward hosts, poor camera shots, and reporting from cafes and bars all over rural Iowa. That’s the way politics was meant to be.

EDIT: From a piece in Slate yesterday on C-SPAN’s coverage of the campaign:

“Its tone can be so dry that you might feel a need to spread mayonnaise on your TV screen. But it can switch, in a blink, into an all-you-can-eat buffet of high absurdity.”