Jordan also said that perhaps the current rat-tat-tat of so many breathless revelations meant that none stuck around long or needed to be sweated all that much. “And maybe voters are so cynical they’re not shocked by anything,” he said.
But I’m not sure that’s strong consolation for someone understandably hesitant about having almost every aspect of his or her family’s lives declared fair game from the outset and splashed, however fleetingly and meaninglessly, across magazine covers and computer and TV screens. That must give many reasonable leaders pause, as must the farcical pageantry of the present-day campaign, including the sound-bite vacuity of even a ritual as supposedly substantive as a debate. The Republican one on Thursday night was a bonanza of well-rehearsed one-liners and cynical, selective attacks. It was spirited, but it wasn’t pretty.
We in the news media are in a difficult position. We can’t know what information voters at a given time feel entitled to. And we often can’t guess what’s going to be relevant until the digging and the damage have been done. I read “Game Change” and thought: Elizabeth Edwards shouldn’t have been mortified like this. I also thought: John Edwards should have been mortified sooner.
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