Many people scoffed when Jon Stewart was named the new “most trusted man in America” in Time Magazine’s new poll in the wake of Walter Cronkite’s death. Anyone who laughs does not understand the role Stewart really has come to play in our culture- and most importantly how our media culture has changed since Cronkite’s day.

The great gift Cronkite had was that he seemed like- and actually was- a smart and reasonable person who was heavily engaged in the news every day and it was his job to distill it all into a few moments each night. That’s really who he was to America, the guy you trust to give it to you straight. He didn’t care about glamor or fame or advertisers or any of that stuff. He was just all about the news, which is why CBS put him in charge when they did- and why they forced him out when they did. In all the discussion of Cronkite’s career there was scant mention of the railroading that CBS did on him to pave the way for the new corporate-style media and the long line of empty suits tethered by short leashes that followed him across all the networks.

To be fair to Brokaw and Rather and Jennings and their ilk it wasn’t just that, with their designer suits and blowdried hair, they lacked Cronkite’s honest, incorruptible aura, the very media they were on degraded. Instead of news as a public service, it became just another ad-sponsored, ratings driven TV show that required stars, logos and music and all the rest of it. Even if they had wanted to be real newsmen, network television news was no longer the place for it. By the time networks started scraping the barrel of morning show types to anchor the news they might as well have used any game show host.

With the advent of cable, and the demise of network news as a serious option, American news media culture finally adopted the European model of partisan outlets such as Fox News and MSNBC and they just openly began serving up turbocharged spin to their faithful audiences. O’Reilly and Olberman ranted from either side of the fence and a horde of followers lined up to grind their axes in ever shrinking, but loyal, media markets.

And then came Stewart. While network news lost a million viewers every year since Cronkite’s day, and cable became a dubious shout fest, Jon Stewart spoke to a huge swath of America when he shrugged and said “Hey what the fuck?” Every night he began to do exactly what Cronkite did- sift through the day’s news and tell us what we needed to hear. Sure, he made jokes, but the jokes were serious and they were always about the news. But unlike contemporaries like Bill Maher and other stand-up veterans who do political material, Stewart does not simply grind his ax. He’s never self aggrandizing or righteous the way others are. He always seems like just some guy you know- as Cronkite was- who asks the same questions most of us would. Sure, he’s socially liberal, but then so is most of the country. His spanking of the unctious financial douchebag Jim Cramer was not only fabulous, but it needed to be said out loud.

But most importantly of all, Stewart sees right through the bullshit that is slung at us by the state-sized load each and every day. That’s his real gift. Through his jokes and shtick he does indeed expose the truth as most of us see it. In today’s America, “that’s they way it is” has been replaced by “hey, what the fuck?” And that’s just where we are now.

Also posted at Newsvine.com

It’s almost impossible to believe that at the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close that there would actually be a debate in this country over the value and the use of science. But there is. There are people in our government and mainstream popular culture who doubt the value of science and actually believe that the Earth is less than 10,000 years old- and who’s ignorance extends to denying the threat posed by climate change because “God” is really the one in charge. Makes perfect sense, since he’s the one who unleashed the flood why not cook the planet?

In a poll released two days ago by the Pew Research Institute, a breathtaking 6% of American scientists identified themselves as Republican. It’s a staggering number when you think about it. This literally means that, while the Republican Party still holds a grip on roughly 30% of Americans- and 40% of the United States’ Senate- they represent only 6% of the most talented and trained minds in our country, those charged with advancing human knowledge and intelligence.

The reason for this disparity is because a Neanderthal named George W. Bush was installed into the White House in 2000 and, like all evangelicals, he used all the power of his position to advance his faith. His being the highest and more powerful office on the planet, he was able to install untold numbers of his benighted and illiterate fellow travelers from the shaded path of ignorance into offices of power where may remain and continue to infect our national body.

The reality is that our country is like a big, slow moving whale that glides along oblivious to the myriad of parasites like Goldman Sachs that feast on us (see Matt Taibbi’s incredible article in the July 9 issue of Rolling Stone magazine) and faith-based ignoramuses who ignore the warnings and advice of the smartest and best trained among us and rely instead on the voices they hear from inside their sloped foreheads.

It’s worth remembering that the Roman Empire was felled not by genius or science but by Barbarians…

When you really think about it, the very core problem we have in America can be boiled down to one simple concept- we lie to ourselves and we allow others to lie to us. America, after all, is theoretically all about free markets, which means sales and marketing, which means lying. Sound too harsh? Consider that since mercantilism spawned capitalism, the name of the game has been for producers to persuade consumers not only the buy their goods but usually to mask the cost. Our culture is awash in a “$19.95″ instead of $20 mentality.

Consider this from CNN’s ironically titled “Fit Nation” segment:

“In recent years, as the American population has become generally more overweight, brands from the luxury names to the mass retail chains have scaled down the size labels on their clothing.

“You may actually be a size 14 and, according to whatever particular store you’re in, you come out a size 10,” said Natalie Nixon, associate professor of fashion industry management at Philadelphia University. “It’s definitely to make the consumer feel good.”

Yes, you read right, clothes makers are lying to us about how big we are to make their products more attractive. They are banking that you’ll feel better in one of their offerings deliberately marked two sizes down than another product labeled correctly.

This is, of course, the exact same problem that created our current home mortgage crisis. Brokers were lying to their clients, who lied right back, and the banks lied to investment houses who lied to their clients as well. The same is obviously true of the auto industry, where makers lied to us about what they were making

And last, and most importantly, the same principle drives our politics. Our politicians know they have to lie to us to get elected, which is how they justify doing it to themselves, and we are eager to take their lies to avoid the responsibility for the truth. But we are currently allowing banks and healthcare corporations who reap unspeakable profits on our need for medical care, to fund immense lies through the mouths of our politicians- lies that will cost us all dearly.

While we happily eat turds served in styrofoam if they are called “value meals,” perhaps we are not so different from the pathetic Michael Jackson who lied to himself- and to all of us- about his medication, his face, his hair, his skin, his sexuality, and just about everything else. Like Jackson, we’re all just accepting lies because it’s easier than facing the truth, but the truth will not wait forever and the longer we wait to face it the harder it will be to take.

And the day of truth is most surely on the way.

Amazing! If you saw Sarah Palin’s breathtaking, stream of very, very dim consciousness press announcement that she was not only passing on running for re-election as governor of Alaska, but stepping down right away, you could only watch with wide eyes and slack jaw. Coming on the heels as it does of a string of disturbing events from, Michael Jackson’s pathetic exit from this mortal coil to South Carolina governor Mark Sanford’s toe-curling public therapy session, it just makes you wonder what planet these folks are all living on. In Palin’s case, a collective shudder of fear should go through anyone with a brain given that this nutcase might have been a heartbeat away from the Oval Office. Can you imagine?

Palin’s gameplan is obvious. Anyone serious about the Republican presidential nomination is using Richard Nixon’s playbook where, in the wake of Goldwater’s crushing defeat in 1964, private citizen Nixon spent two years going anywhere there was a Republican candidate to support and quietly piled up chip after chip in preparation for the ‘68 race. Romney is doing just that right now, Rotary Club dinner by living room coffee get together, and is slowly building a solid foundation that will be hard for anyone to match. Palin just decided that she can’t sit up in Alaska on her hands doing nothing, which is what the governor of Alaska does, and let Romney solidify his support so she’s literally walking away from her elected office. Just like the intellectual child she is, she’s just setting down the sippy cup she cried over a minute ago to go chase the big shiny object in the next room. She’s putting her foot right on the faces of the people of Alaska to get a step up for her career- and worst of all she has no one around her with brains enough to understand the optics of this move.

The only thing more fascinating than this decision to commit political suicide was actually watching her do it. She stood in front of a microphone and tried to cover up her obvious ambition with a senseless ramble about the dishonesty, if not outright criminality, of lame duck status, upset over bad press, effecting change from “outside,” to her usual attempt to draw “our troops” into whatever point she is trying to make as though they somehow provide her political cover. Her suggestion that David Letterman needed to extend his apology to her to “our brave fighting men and women” was an example of her bizarre rhetorical retardation. But today took the cake. By walking away from an office to which she was elected by the voters so that she could pursue a White House bid- something no one has ever done before- she showed that she has no clue whatsoever about national politics.

The question we all need to consider is how any of us ever took this woman seriously in the first place, and let her get anywhere near a seat of power. A shudder indeed.

Also posted at Newsvine