People seem infatuated with reality TV. We have Survivor and Biggest Loser, American Idol and X-Factor, whatever that means. There are actors with little personality, and "personalities" with little acting skill.
Another form of reality entertainment comes in the form of "professional sports" (an oxymoronic phrase, if you think about it). Professional wrestling may not really be real, but then again, neither is Kim Kardashian.
Other professional entertainers (sometimes called the "news media") make their living by talking or writing about these people, typically with breathless sincerity. They follow the other entertainers around, obsessed with the most trivial details of their lives, both on and off the stage.
They're all pikers. The real pros are national presidential candidates. These folks are beyond the petty details of film locations and production budgets. They don't have to stoop to deals with cable networks or news syndicates. All they need to do is show up. With a dozen microphones stuck in their face, they simply need to utter a heartfelt twenty-word philosophy of life, and the other professional entertainers go to work with hours of analysis, criticism, commentary and opinion.
How is this not a reality TV game show? Who's ahead today? Who's beating up on whom? Where's the next plot twist, when something scandalous sneaks out of a closet, or a black sheep relative surfaces? There is certainly no more depth or insight in all the commentary than there is in, say, the endless replay of a fumbled football or debate over whether the starlet really has implants.
At this point in the playoff season, the professional entertainment world is obsessed with the Republican presidential primary. The column inches of newsprint and terabytes of electronic media devoted to this is nauseating. And the interesting thing is, like a "professional sports" event, it doesn't make any difference.
Why is the Republican presidential primary completely irrelevant to real life (as opposed to reality TV life)? Simple, for two reasons:
First, Barack Obama will have to really screw up not to get re-elected. So far, he's been very careful not to do anything, and it's hard to trip up if you're not moving.
Second, the election game is about policies and positions, but these are irrelevant. The most junior congressperson from Froghop, Nebraska has more votes (exactly one out of 535) in passing legislation than the president (exactly zero out of 535). Sure, the president can veto stuff, but almost nothing makes it out of both houses of congress, so that's not much fun. The president can, in theory, use his "bully pulpit" to go straight to the people to put pressure on the legislators to pass something. The only problem is that while the president is at the pulpit, the rest of us have our fingers in our ears, yelling blah blah blah while watching X Factor with one eye and Facebook with the other.
The US Constitution, believe it or not, assigns the president the job of being the chief executive officer of the government organization, and leaves the policy stuff pretty much to the legislative branch. For someone interested in the federal government's ability to mismanage almost everything (see TSA), it would be a good exercise to find out if any of the candidates are any good at managing something. But wait--they're not applying for a serious management job in a fairly big organization--they're PROFESSIONAL ENTERTAINERS.
Mitt Romney, for example, takes credit for turning around the management of the 2002 Winter Olympics, but even if that's true, no one is interested in it. Can you imagine the yawns and eye-rolling if Romney actually started talking about delegation, motivation, values-oriented leadership, strategic planning and project management? He would get no more than two words into it before a bored reporter would scream the question, "what's your stance on abortion?" This, in spite of the fact that presidents have been too old and male to need them, and none have so far been competent to perform one (except of the bureaucratic variety).
Clearly, the chances of the American electorate actually, by accident, putting a good chief executive officer in the White House, are about as slim as the chance of congress actually balancing the budget.
The solution? A constitutional amendment to limit the presidency to a single one-year term. Then each season we could have a different crop of professional entertainers to....well, entertain us.
