I can't believe this is an issue

Or, alternative title, why the main stream media bites the big one. I got home from work yesterday afternoon and it was nonstop on CNN, Headline News, even frelling PBS: is Obama a patriot?! OMG. Shut up already. If I could have reached through the screen to strangle the airheads masquerading as journalists on the "Situation Room" I would have. When they weren't sucking oxygen from the rest of us by babbling on and on about how if you get distracted and forget to put your hand over your heart while someone is butchering "The Star Spangled Banner" you must not be a true American, they went off on an equally bizarre tangent attacking Wes Clark for pointing out that getting shot out of an airplane doesn't automatically mean you've got leadership potential.

It's a perfectly valid point, but the MSM leaped all over it as though (a) this was breaking news [big flash for you guys at CNN: Wes Clark has been saying this over and over in multiple settings since he came out for Obama earlier this spring. Way to go on the superstar investigative journalism front]; and (b) Clark was unpatriotic for suggesting military service, especially fairly low level military service, in and of itself should not be a litmus test for anything. (I was, by the way, extremely disappointed that Obama was frigging stupid enough to repudiate Clark's comments instead of stating the obvious: it's a legitimate critique, especially when it's coming from someone with Clark's extensive command experience. Note to Obama: If you shove enough people under the bus, sooner or later you're going to run out of people willing to ride it.)

You know, maybe if people spent less time worrying about whether or not someone conforms to their personal ideal of patriotism and more time doing stuff that could actually help this country, I wouldn't have to resort to watching 2-hour History Channels specials devoted to "Dung" just to preserve my sanity. But after observing political news coverage for awhile, discussions of 100-foot tall piles of bat guano covered with cockroaches just seem so clean in comparison.

(I am, by the way, trying to figure out how much longer Jack Cafferty is going to survive on CNN. He's the only on-air personality left there who seems relatively immune to group think.)