Our Common Baseline of Facts

Have you seen David Letterman lately?

He simply looks ridiculous. I don't know any other way to describe it.

He no longer shaves and must be auditioning for a part on "Duck Dynasty.  That's the only explanation I can come up with. He looks like an off-season Santa Claus. By the way, before everybody starts defending Dave and his choice to look like a hobo, remember twenty years ago Dave would be doing a "TOP TEN THINGS LIVING IN THAT GUY'S BEARD" regarding anyone with a beard like his.

Well, Dave's "retired" now and no longer does "Top Ten Lists", "Stupid Pet Tricks", or jumps in a pool wearing a suit lined with Alka-Seltzer tablets.  No, Dave has decided to work for Netflix, and has a monthly show called "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction".  His first guest was former President Barack Obama.

Since Dave is all serious now, he asked President Obama what is the most dangerous threat to democracy: a President demeaning the press (like a certain unspoken current President with orange hair) or a foreign power sabotaging the voting process (on behalf of the orange hair President).

Obama took a deep breath and said, "One of the biggest challenges we have to our democracy is the degree to which we don’t share a common baseline of facts. If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet than you are if you are listening to NPR.”   
 
As long as we are talking about "demeaning", let's look at the last sentence in the above quote from President Obama.  People that watch Fox News ain't from around here, Buddy. They're from Planet Redneck with their My Pillows and Liberator Medical Catheters.

However, President Obama didn't answer the question. The answer is a foreign power sabotaging the voting process because Presidents have always been demeaning to the press. Personally, I think a President spying on a reporter is worse than him blowing raspberries at him, but that's just me.

A lot of the news media, like with most things during Obama's public career, treated this as some sort of new incredible insight, when it really wasn't.  I remember reading Peggy Noonan complaining about the same thing a couple of years ago.

In the past, Americans basically got their news from three sources: the 30-minute nightly newscasts of  ABC, CBS, and NBC.  When Walter Cronkite said "And that's the way it is", that was the way it was, dadgum it.

Now, we have three major 24-hour news networks and all of that has supposedly changed. But it really hasn't.

We all "share a common baseline of facts".  After all, it is a fact Donald Trump is the President of The United States.  It is the interpretation of those facts that is different.  Five of the six television news outlets think the Trump Presidency is THE APOCALYPSE and we must do what we can to resist THIS EVIL ORANGE HAIRED, FAT, TINY FINGERED MAN, including resisting a tax cut.

Meanwhile, over at Fox, Trump is treated with more respect. I personally think Sean Hannity would be in favor of Same-Sex Marriage if it meant he could marry President Trump.

All of this gives some people a headache, including me.  I don't mind people having different opinions than me.  I do mind people shouting about it 24/7.

Back during The Obama Years, there was all of this talk about "his birth certificate". I was never sure why this was important.  A lot of energy was put into this topic by various people of various levels of "conservatism".  It came up bupkis.

However, when he was a Senator, Obama met with Louis Farrakhan and had his picture taken with him. The nicest thing you can say about Farrakhan is that he has a great selection of bow ties.  Other than that, he is a hot mess of hate.  The journalist that took the picture said he didn't release it because he didn't want to hurt Obama's Presidential ambitions.

That, my friends, is why there is a Fox News. Four years ago, five out of the six news outlets were doing cartwheels and waving pom-poms about President Obama.

It may not have made a difference, but it would have been interesting to hear President Obama explain the meeting and the picture. My guess is that he would have tried to distance himself from Farrakhan like he did with his preacher.  But you'll never know and you never will because we are more interested in making fun of people that don't agree with us.