"If the current effort to reform American healthcare ends in frustration, much of the blame rests on our political culture's empowerment of deception and ignorance. Fake erudition is revered, every hoax is deemed brilliant, and prejudice is presented as knowledge -- while actual expertise is disregarded or devalued."  (Joe Conason)

Ain't it the truth.  What or who created the political culture's empowerment of deception and ignorance?  We did.  That's us, folks.  Not some liberal, not some conservative, not some radical.  We created the current political culture of deception and ignorance.

A pundit is, according to Wikipedia, "someone who offers to mass-media his or her opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically political analysis, the social sciences or sport) on which they are knowledgeable."  I guess the key phrase there is "on which they are knowledgeable," or presumed to be knowledgeable.  But political pundits always have a bias.  That's why, at least in the case of those invited to appear on talk shows and television shows such as Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Fox News or other such shows.

They have a bias and are happy to express it, with or without supporting facts.  They have written a book or two, maybe worked in the White House of a previous administration or have "distinguished" themselves in some other way.  Maybe they were an adviser in the campaign of some successful, prominent candidate.  Whatever, they have established their credentials to someone's satisfaction and, hence, get invited to be on a show and speak their mind.

How good (accurate) are they?

If you noticed, in the weeks leading up to the 2004 election all the pundits for the Democratic Party predicted a John Kerry win.  They pointed out with absolute clarity all the things George Bush had done wrong, how low was his popularity with the public, how costly the war in Iraq was, how disenchanted the public was with that war, and on and on.  Not one of them predicted he would win the presidency again.  Not one, to the best of my knowledge, even suggested that he might win.

They were wrong!

That is just one instance in which we, the American public, should have learned a lesson.  If we are looking for biased news or biased pundits to support our views, they are out there and will be glad to accommodate us.  That is, they will be happy to tell us what we want to hear.

Make no mistake, we are at fault.  Paraphrasing Joe Conason, we have empowered deception and ignorance. Fake erudition is revered, every hoax is deemed brilliant, and prejudice is presented as knowledge -- while actual expertise is disregarded or devalued.

The people who listen to Rush Limbaugh know what they are going to hear.  They know it is more misinformation than information, but Limbaugh tells them what they want to hear.  One person I know listens faithfully every day to three hours of Rush Limbaugh.  My friends, listening to three hours from any single person is brainwashing, not education.

I'm not picking on Rush Limbaugh; he is very entertaining at times.  But the same criticism holds for those folks who only listen, say, to MSNBC.  They know that the various hosts on this network will have a liberal bias and can be counted on to take to task Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly or any other conservative spokesperson with whom they have a disagreement -- which is all of them.  And like their conservative counterparts, they will cherry pick the items they want to attack and gloss over everything else.  In other words, they will present their prejudice as knowledge and disregard or devalue any actual facts.

We not only encourage these people by buying their books, listening to their shows and, sometimes, following their advice, but we are guilty of a greater crime: allowing the press to become openly biased and lazy in its reporting.  Reporters, both print and television, go out to FIND the story they were sent to find.  Remember that.

Editor: Let's do a story on the people unhappy with the proposed healthcare plan.
Reporter: Gotcha, boss.  (And the reporter proceeds to find such people and do a story on them while failing to mention, perhaps, that he had to interview 20 people to find the three he highlights in his story.)

Send a television reporter and a cameraman out on the street to find people who do not know who their local congressman is and guess what?  The reporter will find five or six such people for the six o'clock news under the teaser headline: Do New Yorkers (or whatever state) know their local congressman?

We tolerate this cheap and lazy form of news because it entertains us.  But it does not inform us.  We need start thinking about calling the local TV station every time we see such sloppy, time-filling nonsense passing as news!

When news reporters start doing their job, i.e., start reporting, we won't have to depend on radio and television talk show hosts or Sunday morning news show pundits for clarification of what's happening in Washington or our state's capitol.  We're intelligent.  We're educated.  We can figure it out for ourselves if they will just give us the facts.

In the meantime, we all need to heed the advice our our high school English teacher who admonished us when we were quoting some source to support the theme of our essay to "Consider the source."  We need to think for ourselves, insist on facts, and champion honesty and transparency in news reports and press releases from our elected officials.

We can then be our own demagogues and ideologues -- after we get the facts.