Do You Feel Betrayed… Again? The Clinton Whitehouse was chuck full of improprieties, questionable actions, and a seemingly endless stream of investigations, accusations though ultimately only one impeachment: probably only one impeachment because there was insufficient time for beltway busybodies to launch a second of third. Citizens, elected officials, pundits, and the international community largely agreed that the Clinton administration, while blessed with many positive attributes, was one of the most publicly acknowledged immoral administration to occupy the Office of the Presidency in our nation's history. George W. Bush was then narrowly elected into office and unarguably yielded no small advantage over his primary competitor, Al Gore, as a result of the taint Mr. Gore couldn't shake lose from his direct involvement in this publicly recognized immoral administration.  I have used the term "publicly acknowledged" twice in that first, critical paragraph. My editor insists I avoid the needless repetition. But it is not needless: his mistake. It is central to my assertion that you are hopefully follow through to its logical conclusion.  Part I- Who Wags Who Elected officials, like television programming, like AM radio content, among myriad other phenomenon in our capitalist nation, are driven by the public. We are the dog, they are the tail. Granted there are debatable instances where that metaphor is reversed, where the tail in fact wags the dog. The film *the tail wags the dog dramatizes this occurrence cleverly and accurately. But, believe it or not, it doesn't happen that often. There are instances where sufficient political, financial and literal muscle, buoyed up with good old fashioned luck, enable the metaphor to be flipped, but they are rare. The tail grips reality by the rear and shakes the dog a bit. But it cannot happen often. Our incredibly complex society of political and media checks and balances prevents it from happening as often as rabblerousing conspiracy theorists imagine.  But make no mistake: if we all stopped watching the oft-derided cartoon "South Park", Comedy Central its corporate owners would cancel it immediately. South Park exists- and is radically popular amongst certain demographics- because it has a profoundly dedicated following. The people that watch South Park don't do so by accident. They make time to enjoy their show. They love it. They buy dolls of the characters, DVDs of the episodes they've already seen, or even more extreme, DVDs of the creators rambling on about their thoughts pertaining to the show. The owners of Comedy Central didn't command *Trey Parker to cook up a vile little cartoon show that deals with every sordid topic imaginable, in the hopes that it might net them more advertising dollars. No, an original short cartoon of the characters distributed underground, largely via the web, created by the two was wildly popular. And the astute Program Directors and other learned, experienced leaders of Comedy Central knew they had stumbled across a show with vast potential. They of course also knew, even before contacting the creators, that there would be tremendous backlash from various special interest groups that found the show abhorrent and offensive. But even that was undoubtedly acceptable, as it provided them with a tremendous amount of free psuedo-advertising- a classic Hollywood move. The dog was wagging the tail. The dog loved the show. They shipped it to all their friends, they clustered around each other's computers or televisions, and enjoyed every over-the-top, offensive, hilarious minute. The dog spoke with their actions. The tail responded by signing the creators up to create a weekly television show. And the rest is, like it or not, entertainment history.  And if all the listeners of AM radio suddenly stopped liking sports, country music and conservative pundits then Rush, *Shania and NASCAR would have to relinquish that lucrative media stream. But those radio stations and their corporate leaders, board, and, in some instances, stock owners, demand profit. They demand ears. So that content, among others like NPR, continue to be transmitted. And commercials are wedged in those transmissions. And the mediadvertising juggernaut rolls along as it always has and always will for the rest of our lives.  Yes, there are times when media conglomerates wield influence in deciding what is or is not popular. What programming will survive to next season and which will be allowed to fall of the air and be repackaged as reruns via other networks, or merely plopped onto a DVD and sold to the frustrated fans who've lost their show. Money, power, influence, relationships and a slew of other factors all get boiled in a big pot and decisions are rendered based on that media stew. But this influence is limited. Never does a truly unpopular bit of programming survive long in the harsh media jungle. A powerful director associated with the project might be able to convince the myriad powers-that-be to keep a lame shred of programming limping along longer than it should in the hopes that their project can fully mature and realize the popularity the director knows in his heart is imminent. But that is about it. An unpopular program will not survive. Period. The proverbial tail can, for instance, wedge itself in a car door and try to shake the dog, but never can it do so for long, and never can it shake the dog very hard. The dog is too big. The dog has the brain. The tail is, to a certain extent, vestigial. It survives by the whim of the dog.  Part II- Reality Evolves Faster We all accept that virtually every technology obeys, to some extent Moore's Law. Currently Moore's Law mandates that the power of computer processing doubles every 18 months. This has been true for the *20 years since he first pronounced it and no practical computing professional can confidently predict a time when it will cease to be true. Intel hits a wall with the current type of technology their chips are based upon, while six other bright companies find a means to shift that technology and keep Moore's Law intact.  But we have found that Moore's Law, while still only technically applicable to that which Gordon Moore first applied it, does help define the rapid pace at which development of other technology races along. Whether the size of the average MP3 player (perhaps shrinking by 50% or doubling its storage capacity every 18 months), the megapixel capabilities of a $400 digital camera, or the price of a 17 inch LCD flatscreen monitor, technology races ahead, powered by brilliant engineers.  And when technologies like the realtime polygon-crunching power of first-person shooter games- as popularized by Quake, *quinns game, and others- are driven by more than one distinct technology, the effect can even be characterized as synergistic. It can be exponential in its growth. In this instance the power of superior software, faster processors, and improved memory technologies all multiply together, yielding a dramatic improvement in the average state-of-the-art, fluidly visual game. It represents exponential growth in speed and power and before we know it the magical threshold whereby the computer can process 80,000 pixels 32 times per second will be achieved and then what we see on our computer screen will be indistinguishable from what we see in reality. It's coming. It's merely a matter of time. Time and money.  And the real mind-bender is that while it would be silly to try and apply Moore's notorious law to everything with a development cycle and the capacity for improvement, it does indirectly apply. Computers are ubiquitous. Particularly within a select handful of nations like the USA, *Singapore, Japan and others, computers have penetrated down into everything from defense systems to coffee makers and from phones to bicycles. Whether an integral part of the socks themselves, or as part of the manufacturing process of socks, computers are thoroughly embedded in the greater collective entity that is socks. So no, relevant sock attributes don't double every 18 months in a literal, linear sense of the term, however the quality of socks, the speed with which they can be produced and shipped, their warmth, their breathability, their complex weaves, and a host of other qualities all improve at a dramatically faster pace than was ever true, say, 30 years ago. And computers are largely responsible for this fact. Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan accepts this fact. He builds this fact into his overall worldview, upon which our fragile economy is largely based. And you must too.  Part III- The Town Cryer is Dead Actually that assertion is overly dramatic. S/he isn't dead, just so highly evolved over the past 200 years that s/he is unrecognizable. To apply the cliché "news travels fast" is the grossest of understatements. It doesn't merely travel fast. It rockets along at a dizzying pace that few of us can conceive of, let alone follow capably.  Whether its news within your family that Uncle Butch had a heart attack, or within your professional sphere that Janice was nominated to receive a prestigious award, or within the world that a world leader dribbled some liquid on an employee's dress, news at all levels and of all flavors races light to be the fastest thing in the universe. And the pace of information dissemination has exploded because not only have computers fundamentally increased the actual speed this occurs, but has also increased the number of channels by which this information can be pushed out. This is a textbook case of More Faster. When I hear Janice has been nominated for the award, I can choose to email colleagues about it, blastfax our mutual friends about it, call luddites on the phone and even write letters to those few determined citizens that are totally off the network. Not only can I tell more people, more quickly than ever before, but with a quick googling of Janice and the nature of the award I can almost instantly cook up what is in essence a personalized press release, describing Janice, the award, and why she was nominated. 20 years ago I might have mentioned her nomination at a water cooler conversation to 3 colleagues. Today, within minutes, I can canvas Janice's entire network of personal and professional associates with a detailed description of the entire event.  Nowhere is this evolvement, largely driven indirectly by Moore's Law, more evident than in the media. The old town cryer no longer stands on the corner, shouting a truncated version of last week's international events. Today, in that timeframe, entire publications devote an issue to an event, television networks conceive and produce a mini-series around the event. Because, just like the example of Janice above, they are not only informed of the event sooner, they not only tell their friends and colleagues about it faster, but they can research and respond to it at a massively faster pace.  Part IV- Our Political Process Yes, it is ours. We are the dog. Over the past 200+ years we have evolved the political process that currently lives. Yes, elected and appointed officials are actual the instruments of change, but we elected them, and those elected officials appointed the rest. It is our shared political process. We might whine about it, we might pray for it to change somehow, but at the end of the day it is ours. It's like our child. We created our child and we raised our child. There are other factors of course- from luck, or the lack thereof, to their friends, other family members, societal influences, to name a few- but that child is ours. If the child grows up to be a world class snowboarder, we take the lion's share of the credit. If the spawn grows up to be a child pornographer, we must also take much of the blame. Of course we're more apt to blame other influences like South Park, or popular videogames like *sin city game from lisa* or that perverted family member that was influential. Yet, at the end of the day, we must take an overwhelming majority of the credit and blame. Nobody cares if Billy watched the revolting "Red Rocket" episode in South Park and as a result you claim he became a purveyor of illegal smut. Billy is your child. You must take responsibility for him.  And we must all collectively take responsibility for our government. We can't blame our forefathers, or even foremothers for that matter. It is ours for good or ill.  Part V- Modern Day Attributes of an Electable Official I submit that originally our forefathers intended our elected officials to be generous, intelligent, committed citizens willing to put off their respective businesses for a brief stint at bureaucracy. They had to be known by their fellow citizens and had to have a solid reputation amongst their future constituency. Obviously, even in the beginning, this high-minded vision wasn't universally adhered to, and unavoidably charlatans were able to win political office. But with the limited scope of a town cryer to promote their word, their capacity to dupe the population was inherently limited.  Enter the modern era. Telegenics, polished speech, and beauty rule the day. Granted, as I've oftentimes maintained, very few if any flat out stupid people are elected to office. My uncle and I have a standing bet on whether Dubya's IQ is higher than mine. I can't seem to find any hard evidence anywhere reliable citing his IQ, but continue to believe it must be higher than my paltry 135 (and that's on a good day…) And most modern day politicians, like their historic predecessors, are in direct touch with relevant slices of their constituency, are certainly committed to their task, and have a strong sense of purpose. Unfortunately, unlike 150+ years ago, there is a dramatically disproportionately mighty emphasis placed on their capacity to be telegenic. In many senses they have more, professionally, in common with a small market, TV meteorologist than they do their historic forebears. We collectively fall victim to this devolvement of our democratic process, dismissing Walter Mondale and his ilk merely because they aren't sufficiently sexy on television. They aren't as compelling as Tom Brocaw. They aren't as charming as Bill Clinton.  Enter also the modern era of gray morality and massive spin. Our forefathers, and mothers, were largely driven by a simpler worldview. There was good and there was evil. When it came to WWII, a line between the two opposing forces was easy to draw. Hitler was evil, his comrades were supporting his evil, and the rest of us were therefore inherently good. Ah, the good old days… With Korea, with Vietnam, with McCarthyism, and with Nixon everything became much grayer. And stem cell research? Spin from both camps yields nothing but confusion for the ordinary citizen like me. I understand that stem cell research will create tremendous medical advances. But I also know, deep down, that we should avoid harvesting humans, no matter how tiny, whenever possible.  So in the face of all this, what can a politician do to fairly win an election? What can they do to lead us justly and morally through these strange days? What attributes must a child seek to grow in him or herself in preparation for becoming a future president of the United States of America? There are several: 1- Assume everything you say is being recorded. That everything you write to anybody anywhere will be brought up and analyzed infinitum later. You will find that by obeying this practice you start to speak in spun half-truths far less often. 2- Keep yourself looking good. You don't have to be beautiful you just have to, as one wise friend of mine puts it, "take care of yourself." American will never elect a dramatically overweight president for the rest of our lives. It's stupid. It's sad. But it's true.  3- Be logical. Socrates is the man. Remember that. Not Lincoln, not Washington, not even Jefferson. Socrates and his linear path to logic will carry you through many a confusing or difficult time.  4- Don't become a professional politician. People whose careers are being politicians (sorry Mr. Kennedy) are an endangered species that, happily, will be eradicated from the face of our political landscape. Be a good citizen, successful businessperson, or whatever you need to be to gain the experience necessary to lead well and liberated from the addiction to PACs, special interest groups and their ilk that hamper professional politicians.  Part VI- The Upshot We control our nation. We choose our elected officials. We are a sucker for a pretty face. We mindlessly believe all too often that which we read in print- this essay included. The lightning-fast pace of communication technologies and reporting is such that there will never be a citizen elected as President whose term will not be dogged by questions of impropriety and immorality. It is unavoidable. Between the spin of the President's selfish political enemies, passionate Presidential statements taken out of context, spurned lovers, and the nearly insane no President will ever have a seamless, smooth term. It is now impossible.  So get used to it, fellow Americans. We have built this machinery. We encourage elections to be decided based upon who has the most money and the best image makers. We stare, open-mouthed and fixated, as irrelevancies like what liquid was spilled on which intern distract us from what is relevant. We are the ones that dismiss candidates because their staff misspell words like "potato".  This is the new scene, to recast a phrase from an inspired artist. And we are all likely to have to sleep in this bed we have made for the rest of our lives.

No, I am not the famed film director. Though aspiring actresses are welcome to contact me.