Kate Oberg | Student Life

Why was I chosen as a panelist to debate the merits of Obama’s legislative record and its relationship to the changing hands of Congress? It might have had something to do with the column you’re currently reading, but as I sat staring out at the sea (more like puddle) of faces before me, I started thinking—why are any of our political pundits in the position they’re in? Sure, I like talking about politics, and I take a healthy interest in what goes on over there in the District of Corruption, but what about the people that appear on our televisions and radios? How did they even get there in the first place?

The force of political pundits is so strong in the charged national discourse that it seems almost anyone can be a voice, from a blogger wearing nothing but his underwear and socks, sitting in his mother’s basement, to a virtually unknown legislator with a shrewd sense of Twitter management. Our generation is a prime example of this mentality. Due to the proliferation of information online, we can choose to absorb ourselves completely in the issues of this country, electing to spout national poll data the way some New Yorkers cite the batting averages of the entire Yankees roster. The only issue is that everyone seems to have an opinion. How do you sort through the good, the bad and the ugly on the platform of the great, democratic equalizer: the Internet? More importantly, how do you stand out from the millions who are trying to figure out the same thing?

In today’s race to appeal to the masses, the most common approach is the use of humor. Satire, humor’s sardonic cousin, was the finely-tuned machine that brought a Republican campaign to its knees with a series of well-timed late-night comedy skits featuring one Ms. Tina Fey and her alter-ego, Sarah Palin. The rise of humor could be a knee-jerk reaction to a very unfunny political landscape: a flailing economy, a grinding war and the rise of partisan extremism are all concerns that have been unfailingly addressed in comedy. It is the blurred line between expert and entertainer, however, that seems to be most interesting.

Just last week, Stephen Colbert testified in Congress with a personal account of a day in the life of a migrant worker. His appearance was deemed everything from “incisive” to “inappropriate” by politicians from both parties as he explained his perspective on migrant workers. “I don’t want a tomato picked by a Mexican,” Colbert said. “I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian.”

Though we may laugh at perhaps the most amusing testimony ever to grace CSPAN-3, Colbert’s presence in a hearing shows a new level in the political circus. Though he satirizes neoconservatives such as Glenn Beck, it is clear that many of these voices aren’t messing around, as evidenced by popularity of Beck’s “Rally to Restore Honor.” Amid all of these hyped, overblown theatrics from both sides of the aisle, it’s become increasingly difficult to determine where hard facts end and spectacle begins. There’s no harm in a sense of humor—most people require it to swallow a modicum of politics, but it has become worrisome that histrionics have replaced intellectual heavyweights as a source of authority.

In an interview with New York Magazine, Jon Stewart said of his role within politics, “The pettiness of it, the strange lack of passion for any kind of moral or editorial authority, always struck me as weird. We felt like, we’re serious people doing an unserious thing, and they’re unserious people doing a very serious thing.”

I think it’s safe to assume that most people take Limbaugh’s rant with a heavy grain of salt, just as most people differentiate between the humor and the politics in “The Colbert Report.” I do think that Limbaugh has a point, and that he brings a voice to the political arena that should be taken seriously. However, while I think many people have no problem digging through Limbaugh’s outlandish rhetoric to the underlying political point, the problem is that an equal number of people just don’t get it and actually take him seriously.

The result? There are several: OBAMA as an acronym (Oppressive Bloodsucking Arrogant Muslim Alien), slogans such as “The Anti-Christ is living in the White House” and even children as young as 10 years proudly flaunting t-shirts with slogans such as “The cure for Obama communism is a new era of McCarthyism.” The most disturbing part, as I found out personally while driving through Kentucky over the weekend, is that these people actually believe what they are saying.

Of course, this isn’t to say that only Republicans partake in this kind of extremism without actually knowing what they’re talking about. I’m positive that depending on the state, one could find all sorts of similar examples. The point I’m making is not to demonize the Republican Party or any aspects thereof, but rather to raise the question: who are we to blame? Do we blame the polemical pundits, who use hyperbole to make a point but are taken at face value? Or, do we blame the people for being idiotic enough to use those slogans and wear those T-shirts? After all, I am positive that a 10-year-old who was born after the Gulf War—let alone the Vietnam War—has no idea what McCarthyism was really like, and it’s just as unlikely that his parents appreciated the impact of the McCarthy era.

Ultimately, I think that the blame lies with all of us—we value entertainment more than we value factual accuracy. After all, it’s much more entertaining to watch an angry conservative rant and insult the Left, or a liberal comedian making fun of the Right, than it is to listen to the encyclopedic facts.

The problem, however, is that regardless of how hard it is to stomach, what we actually need is simply that: just the facts. Sure, facts can be manipulated; we need to be aware of the biases within any statistics, and at times we need to question their presentation and challenge their authority. As it stands, however, almost anything is an improvement from the butchered set of political commentaries that we have today. Hopefully one day we’ll be able to look back at extreme acts like Limbaugh’s and take them for what they are: jokes.

AJ is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at asundar@wustl.edu.