The focus on Sen. Obama’s lifting of Thomas Frank has felt like a return to the surreal nature of political coverage in the 2004 election season. So much of that year was caricature, psycho-babble and regurgitation of press releases/conference calls instead of journalism.

Sure, we need better media organizations, better media entrepreneurs, better media models, a better press corps and so on. That’s all well and good and I am for it, but seeing this spectacle has made me wonder whether the problem is not Obama’s elitism but actual media elites and their culture. The media has been reifying the elitism they are critiquing by talking incessantly about “small town blue-collar” people without featuring their actual voices. Having some Senator or Pat Buchanan or Karl Rove (or whomever) be a segment or print story’s voice of that group’s standpoint is ridiculous and utterly elitist itself. I guess they need people with titles to convey a sense of authority, but when the matter is “small town blue-collar” authenticity, doesn’t it follow that getting some actual people might be in order to report with factual authority?

And so we don’t get information that builds empathy and social solidarity because we don’t see real people. We get professional political gladiators churning out entertainment where the crowd-pleasing gore comes from passing judgment on others. I admit that sometimes I enjoy rooting for my side and awaiting the thumbs down of conventional media wisdom to devastate those I dislike. It just seems we all should have learned our lesson of what governance outcomes the stroking of such emotionally pleasing polarization produces. Our media leaders should have learned a stewardship lesson. Hopefully, this is just a momentary indulgence.