Election Non-Stories

Description

Check out the full article at <a href="http://www.gelfmagazine.com/archives/the_elections_greatest_hits.php">Gelf Magazine</a>. Every four years, the American news media try their best to keep the citizens of our Republic informed as we choose the next leader of the free world. Sometimes, they try a little too hard. While irrelevant information about presidential candidates is as old as the nation itself (Hey, New England Courant, who gives a damn about Washington's false teeth?), it has taken on new life in the age of 24-hour news networks and political blogs. Who can forget<a href="http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/09/23/bush_ad_plays_on_kerry_windsurfing/">John Kerry's affinity for wind-surfing</a>>? Or <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B0DE3DB133BF930A35752C1A96F958260">Al Gore's preference for earth tones</a>? How about when <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWib8GbrIlA">Bob Dole fell off the stage</a>, or when <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0408/9440.html">Bush 41 checked his watch</a>? Ah, classic campaign moments, fraught with so many, many, memories. Except they're, you know, stupid. What exactly do John Kerry's water sports preferences, Al Gore's wardrobe, or Bob Dole's ability to ascend a podium have to do with anything? And George H.W. Bush is bored with debates? Join the club! In their push to cover everything election-related, the <a href="http://www.cnn.com/POLITICS/">Best Political News Team on Television, <a href="http://elections.foxnews.com/">America's Election HQ</a>, and the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN4blG91QMc">Place for Politics</a> (really CNBC, that’s the best you could come up with?), end up covering a bit too much. This election, which began sometime around the fall of the Berlin Wall, has seen its fair share of ridiculous non-stories. What follows is just a small sampling of a much larger nonsense soup. Each entry features a "Wright Score" between one and ten, an entirely subjective metric of how silly the story is. This score takes into account how much a story should have mattered, and how much the media made it matter. And it's not named in honor of Mets third baseman David Wright. So, ladies and gentleman, without further ado—the Greatest Hits of Election 2008!