I'm feeling a bit nostalgic today.

[Pacifist Patriot]

I remember watching the CBS Evening News with my parents growing up and tuning in once in awhile during high school and college. I was raised in the eras of Walter Kronkite and Dan Rather.

I honestly cannot imagine these two gentleman presenting Bachmann, Perry, Romney, et al. as serious contenders. Maybe it's the rose colored lens of hindsight, but if these clowns had thrown their hats in the ring in the 80s, would the media back then have given them any more credit for legitimate campaigns as they did David Duke?

This just feels more and more surreal every day.

[monmouth]

1. Uncle Walter would have reported whatever Bachmann or Perry

news with a straight face and then remove his glasses and look at the camera. He knew we would get his meaning. It was his way of saying "really?".....

[lumpy]

2. Isn't that the truth. That's when we were, as a whole, thinking

people who weren't distracted by so much frivolity; i.e.tits and asses, fashion statements, celebrity romances, and rampant consumerism, etc.

[Ozymanithrax]

3. At the time, Republicans had kicked the John Birch society out of the Republican party...

Now, the old John Birchers are the moderate wing of the Republican Party, and the business model for the news does not even attempt to be a neutral reporter.

[zipplewrath]

4. Wallace and Thurmond

These were marginally serious candidates, and were mostly attempts at "spoilers". But Walter did it straight up anyways.

[CanSocDem]

5. The tipping point for me....

...was when an aging Hollywood actor was not only nominated, but ELECTED. I stopped taking the USA seriously after that.

In that spirit, allow me this observation:

Maybe having an attractive, vacuous woman as your POTUS is an evolutionary step in the rise of 'corpratocracy'. The demise of the public interest, etc.

In my lifetime I've watched the USA flirt with a variety of seemingly, un-statesman like, political leaders. Even when Reagan was elected and we all thought we were going to die in a nuclear war with Russia, the great force of humanity gave us Gorbachev, and we were saved by the other side.

Now-a-days the threat isn't necessarily a nuclear war. Perhaps a more dangerous one in turning good citizens into 'soul-less consumers' living lives of make-believe.

The only time in 50 years that I didn't feel apprehensive about your choices was when Ralph Nader announced his long awaited run for the WH. At the time we had a 'Nader equivalent' running in Canada and I actually had hope that we would eliminate or at least temper the growth of corporations.


.