Lapel Pin?

Let me get this straight. Last night was probably the last chance to get Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton together for one of their "debates," the last chance to try to get them to differentiate their policy proposals. The country is mired in recession, with full-blown depression on the horizon. We're still in Iraq, an untenable occupation that is draining the public treasure and killing and maiming our soldiers. Our schools are failing, millions of people have no health insurance, the middle class is disappearing, we still don't have a coherent immigration policy, gas is almost four dollars a gallon, and almost none of the 9-11 commission's recommendations have been adopted.

There are any number of pressing issues upon which the voting public is clamoring for the opinions of both Obama and Clinton, yet the best the finest minds at ABC news can come up with is to focus on Barack Obama's fashion sense? Are you kidding me?

Let's leave aside the fact that flag etiquette suggests that "the flag should not be used as part of a costume or athletic uniform, except that a flag patch may be used on the uniform of military personnel, firemen, policemen and members of patriotic organizations." Instead, let's focus on the specious claim here: that, somehow, not wearing a flag on his lapel means Barack Obama isn't patriotic. All I can say is that if this is the best his opposition can come up with, Obama can go ahead and book his room at the White House.

Indeed, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos -- pin-heads that they are -- wasted a good fifty minutes trying to play "gotcha" with Obama while a giddy Hillary grinned like the village idiot as she played spectator. It was last night, as I watched a once-proud network sink to the dark depths of tabloid journalism, I finally realized that what many pundits have been saying for years is really true: broadcast journalism (with the exception of Keith Olberman), is officially dead. Thank God for the internet.