American "Collective Narcissistic Disorder" (CND)

While there are still serious reporters like Jim Lehrer, Wolf Blitzer and other Walter Cronkite types, most of the cable “news shows” are peopled by multi-million dollar narcissists who, whether on the left at MSNBC or on the right at Fox News are more involved in keeping their fellow CND sufferers in the news. There is nothing newsworthy about Sarah Palin and sadly there never was. She’s way off to the right but who keeps her in the news, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann and other so-called lefties. They keep Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity and Beck, Limbaugh, Coulter, Bachmann in the front page of the MSNBC engines. And their willing counterparts? The above mentioned Foxies do the same for them. I’m not saying they agree to this as though contracted to each other, I’m saying that consciously or subconsciously, they keep each other in their multi-million dollar seats. What do they sell us? ANGER! They sell us anger from their multi-million dollar perches while we feel greater and greater antipathy toward each other and widen the chasm that threatens to swallow our country, Constitution, and all. The anger is addictive and like all addictive substances, even while we know it is destroying us, we somehow arrive in our seats every night, remote in hand waiting for a fix.

I’ve begun an experiment. Each night I go from MSNBC to Fox to hear the double-sided narcissism and then I watch the News Hour with Jim Lehrer and compare the tone. Try it!