Citizens: The new watchdog of government
I’m not alone in my belief that the media hasn’t done a good job of watching the government in the last couple of decades. Well, they’ve watched, but they haven’t watch-dogged as much as they should have.
But the internet has filled the void to some extent, along with talk radio. I’m not saying everything written by every blogger is true, or that every critical word that comes from a radio talk show host’s mouth is unbiased, but there’s a huge amount of information and ideas exchanged daily through these two portals.
It used to be newspapers and TV networks that did this, but somehow journalism (and I’m a journalist) lost its internal compass.
I have watched the goings on in Washington this past year with the fascination of a journalist, and the horror of a conservative citizen. Watergate felt a little like this, and so did the Monica Lewsinski scandal, but this goes deeper. This is change like we’ve not seen before. And while the current administration apparently believes this is what we wanted back in November 2008, the American people aren’t so sure anymore.
So it was with some interest that I read a new AP-Gfk poll that seems to contradict itself at the core.
A whopping 82 percent are optimistic about what the new year will bring for their families, according to the latest AP-GfK poll. That sunny outlook seems at odds with other findings.
Nearly two-thirds think their family finances will worsen or stay about the same next year. And fewer than half think the nation’s economy will improve in 2010, even though Americans rated 2009 as a huge downer.
So people are saying, “Things look bleak for me next year, but I think the country will do better.”
If I was a Democrat in congress, I would shudder at that thought. If I might put some words in the mouths of the poll respondents, it would go something like this: “I wasn’t paying attention to what my government was doing, and in fact, I haven’t paid attention in quite awhile, and I’ve paid a dear price. I trusted too much. But I’m fully lucid now and I’m now going to stand for this. No longer can I cling to the naive belief that my representatives in congress will look out for me. I’ll have to do that myself. I still believe in this great country, and it will be great again. I’m watching you Washington. I’m watching you.”
And that’s what I call hope and change.
