A Word from Our Sponsors

On the weekend, I had the good/ill fortune to find myself in front of a television on Sunday morning. As a boy, I can still remember my father watching This Week with David Brinkley religiously every Sunday. I would on occasion watch with him, barely understanding the American politics under discussion. So I gladly sat down again to watch these discussions as an adult; they don't seem as complex any more. But it sure beats the brief and pathetic analysis without criticism on Wolf Blitzer Reports on CNN or Fox News.

Sunday morning, while the majority of Americans are sitting in pews hearing about armageddon and the sins of modernity, some gather in front of their televisions to hear from pundits and journalists on the hot political topics of the day. I'm tempted to call them the educated class or the political class but just because you go to church and miss this Sunday morning political discussion, doesn't mean you're not thoughtful. And just because you engage in political discussion, doesn't mean you're a moral, ethical person. Still those Americans that tune in on Sunday mornings hunger for something resembling the truth.

Yet the discussion Sunday mornings rarely pushes the envelop. When I was in Britain, politicians shit their pants facing off against Jeremy Paxman. In America you get politeness and mild criticism at best. What's going on here? Aren't Americans tough? Not on their politicians it seems.

Even this limited muckraking only goes so far. Like all television, Sunday morning is subject to commercial breaks and words from our sponsors. And what sponsors would you expect to hear from every 12 minutes between Iraq and the November elections? Here's what I saw and I encourage you to see for yourself:

1) Oil companies (Esso)
2) Pharmaceutical companies (Merck)
3) Coal producer associations
4) Aerospace and defense contractors (Boeing)

So the real news comes in the sleepy times between the punditry. All these companies advertise to confuse and mystify this hungry political class who might turn against them. They aren't selling anything but their (dubious) innocence. What climate change? What war? What rushed drug trials? They have no need to advertise in prime time because no one who views Everybody Loves Raymond or Friends during prime time is any threat to them. But Sunday morning, that could be revolutionary.