Just re-read Paul Krugman's landmark blog post about the cult that is destroying America.  

In the last paragraph he says: "The 'both sides are at fault' people have to know better; if they refuse to say it, it's out of some combination of fear and ego, of being unwilling to sacrifice their treasured pose of being above the fray." 

I'm sure they know better too.  

I started blogging because the tech press has the same problem. They report conventional wisdom even when it is contradicted by facts.  

I was making new Mac software back in the mid-90s. But reporters were writing that there was no new Mac software. I knew they knew that there was. They were all Mac users, and they were using the new stuff themselves. I knew these people personally, so I asked them why they reported this. Here's what they said: Everyone knows there's no new Mac software. 

The paper Krugman writes for is better than CNN at exposing important information that we need to make decisions, but they're mostly still reporting conventional wisdom, as opposed to reporting what they know to be true.  

If you want to have a sense of what's actually happening, you have to piece it together yourself. Try to get an idea of how much the reporters are echoing what everyone else is reporting, vs reporting what they see with their own eyes. 

This is the real problem in our culture, not the fact that crazies are voting in Congress, sending us into the trashbin. That's how the crazies got elected in the first place. 

The problem is that we all don't listen to each other. If we stopped giving so much credence to who is saying what on CNN, stopped taking them so seriously (they're all entertainers, basically) we'd get out of this trap right away.  

PS: Yesterday's post about why tech news is so boring is on-topic as well. 

PPS: This is why I enjoy reading David Frum's blog. A Republican, he reports what he sees, not what his party tells him to see. What's in it for me? I get to see the world from someone else's point of view, without the humiliation of being openly lied to. 

PPPS: Another important Krugman post. The non-crazy Repubs could accept the deal the President offered them, approve it (with Democrats voting in favor of it too), and we'd be done. Their political careers would be over. Krugman asks: So? How about some courage. And maybe, just maybe -- their careers would be born again. Maybe the people would be happy they actually stood up for them instead of being whipped into a frenzy by Rush Limbaugh et al. (Another thought, maybe the Republicans want to nominate President Obama for his second term, and we can have a progressive run against him as a Democrat.)