PBS Too?

The News Hour with Jim Leher is sort of the last bastion of news professionalism on TV, so it was really disappointing to watch their "commentators" segment that featured three people telling us how silly the Democrats were to have proportionate representation because ... well, um... because the Republicans would choose their nominee first! And... um... that's bad or something. Later Brooks told us that he likes the Iowa because it makes the candidates "really get to know the voters" OF IOWA. Why it's good that Iowans get to meet every candidate but people in, say, Tennessee don't, or why candidates should spend oodles of money on New Hampshire advertising and not in Vermont, well those things were not explained. Shields declared it was bad because it was "everyone gets a ribon" thinking and THAT'S bad. So for some reason we all think it's good that one of the Republican candidates could win all the Georgia delegates with 34% of the vote.

You know, it's not that people were talking about whether Iowa makes sense, or why winner take all primaries are good. What bugged the hell out of me is that everyone was talking about well this would favor candidates with good fundraising or this would be strategically good for blah. No one, NOT ONE PERSON ever mentioned or even seemed concerned with what was best for America, or for our democracy. No one ever said, "I support [winner take all primaries, Iowa first whatever] because I think it produces the best results, because it's [most democratic, or produces the best candidates, or produces the candidates that are most loyal to their party or whatever]." It was all discussion of process and strategy, with no discussion of government, which is sort of the point of these election things.