A well-documented election

Barack Obama’s management of his campaign and the mobilization of a 501c 3 organization as a campaign arm was incredibly brilliant. His oratorical ability and his sense of theater struck a resounding chord with a great number of voting citizens. He won a well-deserved victory in the sense that he did the necessary things that resulted in his being elected. He convinced enough people that he was the solution to their problems to gain enough votes to win.

He was helped in this campaign by avidly partisan Main Stream Media figures, but this has happened in almost every Presidential election. In this election, the majority of MSM outlets did a fantastic job publicizing Barack Obama as the obvious choice while suppressing those challengers like Hillary Clinton, John McCain, etc., etc.

The MSM know they played a major role in electing Barack Obama and they are certainly savoring their victory. Charlie Gibson’s fawning interview with the President-elect was right in line with his earlier interviews of Barack Obama. It was a marked contrast to his demeanor in interviews with the other candidates. But this was not unexpected.

The MSM has never been non-partisan, except in their own eyes.

The major difference in this election was that hundreds of thousands of individuals got to see the seamy underside of the political process on the Internet. Blogs and YouTube videos revealed embarrassing details about every candidate and highlighted the unfortunate bias and misinformation emanating from the MSM.

The dirty deeds and unfortunate relationships that were swept under the table as being "unimportant" will not go away as they might have in the distant pre-Internet past. The details of who did what and who benefited are still out there and will be digested and discussed for years to come.

Will these uncovered misdeeds and crimes affect the political fortunes of our elected officials, hard to say. Probably not, as Congress, the Senate, and the President-Elect will have most of their attention on creating alliances that will carry them through the coming year.

On the other hand, bloggers of the Left and of the Right and every position on the political spectrum will have ample time to uncover information and connect the dots so that a coherent picture will evolve of every incident worth discussing. The shifting positions of the candidates will be laid out on a time track for all to see and analyze. These analyzes will probably be used in an effort to predict future behavior and to anticipate weaknesses.

Efforts to obfuscate and hide data rarely work and there will be a cost to those who attempt it. Who does not know for example, that the LA Times has been sitting on a video of Barack Obama. A news organization suppressing news? How noble of them! What will that do to their bottom line? Probably more layoffs.

By the end of the first 100 days of the new presidency, there could be more well-informed citizens of every political persuasion than ever before in history. The scrutiny that will result from this access to information will cast light in more dark places than you might imagine.

Scrutiny by bloggers will continue to force MSM outlets to cover issues at the risk of being discredited. Bloggers are no more intelligent than the media types they compete with, but bloggers are resourceful and often highly motivated to expose injustices. Their alliances are clearly labeled and you can quickly see where they stand on most issues.

We will see whether the new Administration handles this challenge with style and grace or by repression of dissident voices.

We live in interesting times.

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