Really, I mean it.

I don’t want to have to argue about pig lipstick, or how close Russia is to Sarah Palin’s house, or which foreign country John McCain fundamentally misunderstood this week. I don’t want to argue about these things even though in these and many cases, my guy is right and their guy is wrong. I want to argue about why my guy is my guy in the first place. About the deep down to the core differences in philosophy and mindset between the candidates, about what they would do with their power, who they would help and who they would hurt.

But it is, I am told, silly season. That’s something I could bear, had I not been told that it was silly season months ago and months before that.

The reality is that it’s always silly season. And that’s a problem.

Many of us at OS would like to blame the Republican Party for the state of our national dialogue, but it is fair only to blame those willing to win at all costs, Republicans, Democrats or otherwise.

But beyond that still, why are fake outrage, ridicule and slander effective to the degree they are? No candidate, desperate and shameless as they may be, would use those tactics if they didn’t work. Because in a rational world, they would look desperate and shameless. What is it in our society that allows and encourages the election of our government to be reduced to base triviality?

The corporate media is a main culprit. But like any wild animal, they can hardly be blamed for their behavior. Corporations exist to make money. That is who they are and what they do; to have any higher goal would be to defraud their stockholders. So it should be no surprise that news coverage is driven by ratings and cost-effectiveness. Factors that make much coverage both awful and harmful.

The blame that the corporate media deserves can be given to those who work to remove the public interest requirements from broadcasting and to enable the disappearance of small media owners. Democracy simply can’t function without free, independent media.

But like the politicians who prey on the lazy and profit-driven media, why is media able to get away with this? Why don’t Americans turn off their TV’s and fold their newspapers?

Maybe it’s because we want our election coverage to look and act like TMZ. Somebody must read and watch this shit without irony or horror. There were plenty in attendance at the RNC yelling “drill, baby, drill” and laughing at Obama’s public service, with no regard for objective reality or for their own dignity. How many more of my fellow Americans just couldn’t get tickets for that show?

So again, what would it take to have an issues-based election?

My hope is that as the Internet opens near infinite knowledge to those with access, and our media landscape reshapes itself around it, our understanding of the world around us will improve (mine included). I hope that our public preference for truth and reason will develop and become clear and that we will one day have an election where debates are debates and issue ads are issue ads.

Or maybe the old man will win.