But It’s not journalism, it’s infotainment

For several days, it was made increasingly apparent that the Republican Party has nominated for vice-president a person who is manifestly unqualified to teach middle-school history. (Hint: the default answer, always, is, “Dred Scott v. Sanford, Katie.” The Civil War was, like, a bad thing.) And yet, through the entire run-up to the debate, it was argued by serious people who analyze serious politics and make a serious living doing it that Sarah Palin could reveal herself to be non-dim by putting on the correct puppet show for the media in her debate against Joe Biden. Make no mistake. That’s what the punditocracy was arguing. Give us a reason, please, not to have to write what we all know to be true, what has been self-evidently true to the entire country since you walked off the podium in St. Paul. No rational person can possibly believe that she got smarter, or better informed, or more curious in the time that elapsed between when she talked with Ms. Couric and last night’s debate. What we were being asked to judge was purely how well she had refined her performance skills in the interim. . . . Journalists should not be in the business of perception-is-reality. It is our job to hammer the reality until the perception conforms to it.

Charles Pierce