by Benjamin J. Kirby
Anyone that has even a passing interest in politics needs to take the time to read Jill Lepore's piece in the New Yorker on the very first campaign consultancy. It's called "The Lie Factory" and it is fantastic.
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If you think you're depressed about the debates -- and you probably shouldn't be -- then go ahead and read this story about a young man here in Florida named Christian Fernandez, who killed his two year-old brother. He was almost assuredly on-track to face life in prison, until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that you can't send juveniles to prison for life without parole.
Christian's life has been a nightmare. Given his rough start, it will almost assuredly continue to be a nightmare for the rest of his life, whether he spends it in prison or not.
It's stories like this that remind us of what politics is really supposed to be about.
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The tragic stories of children like Christian Fernandez really do put things like presidential debates and their outcomes in perspective.
Yes, as I mentioned this morning, the President's performance was off. We're still four-plus weeks out, people. It's still kind of a long time. And there are still something like three debates to suffer through endure have.
The best rhetorical question I've seen on the debate deal was basically this: pre-debate, everyone was writing the Romney obituary. Obama had it in the bag, and by most reasonable polling, was on-track for an electoral blow-out. That was with five, six, seven weeks to go.
Don't you suppose it is in the best interest of mainstream media outlets -- network and cable news outlets, newspapers -- to make this as much of a contest as it can possibly be right up to the last minute?
Keep watching over the next few weeks, gang.
And let's remember -- there's so much at stake.
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It's almost Friday.
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