Counting our blessings...considering the alternatives

Michael Scherer at Time's Swampland blogåsbord ties it all together tidily in a post called "Mid-Campaign Malaise."

No doubt we're in a serious rut here after the near-constant gratification of the primary campaign, and of course that of the Democrats in particular; generally speaking, the cycle of debate>major campaign address>voters to the polls>flip on cable news to count the ballots and take in "expert" "analysis">day after>repeat in full furnished its own rewards for the rapt observer of whatever degree of actual expertise --and the indeed most agonizing phase of the campaign was the long six-week layoff, at least in terms of actual voting, between Mississippi on 11th March and Pennsylvania on 22nd April (and such would've been the case even without the agony of the Wright story dominating the intervening news cycles as it did).

So with the primary season ended and the party conventions not due for another two months, we're now back into the old, familiar attack-and-rebut silliness on the cable news shows, of adults acting like overeducated children; we're in a place where there seems to be a presumption of some reward for getting in a particularly pithy zinger or, when all else fails, just talking the loudest and not having any compunctions about interrupting others.

Dan Balz in the Washington Post lays it out thus:

It is difficult to believe that Americans are enjoying all this -- or even
paying close attention to it. The attack-counterattack cycle is so quick that
only the most devoted of political aficionados can keep up, and the tone is so
relentlessly critical that only the most partisan will applaud it.

Yep, a whole lotta preachin' to the choir going on these days, and not at all unlike business as usual during non-campaign years. It's also perfectly understandable in a way --this is the generic Democratic nominee's election to lose, and Barack Obama fit the suit; he's also got a lead to protect, can't risk spending the summer "being defined by" the opposition and all that. From the other side, it's all about "raising doubts," and so on and on it'll go until Labor Day, the conventions and the beginning of the serious business of the dead run to 4th November looms in the near distance.

In the meantime, what by turns and for the most part had been a thrilling, enlightening, entertaining and exasperating campaign season has degenerated into one gigantic snoozefest. What would fill this vacuum is the same kind of thing that does so under normal circumstances having nothing to do with the whirlwind primary campaign ended in the first days of this month: the sort of Anna Nicole/Britney/Paris/JonBenét/Elizabeth Smart/Phil Spector/Scott Peterson/hostage drama/high-speed CHP freeway pursuit stories that --if they were happening at all during the primaries-- went unseen by those of us watching cable news on a daily basis.