Cross posted at Matt’s Meditations by Matt Hozmann

Deep into August, Thanksgiving has come early. Congress is finally in recess. As the President cavorts on Martha’s Vineyard, various state parties are holding conventions to assess the run into the November election. In the meantime, the artists formerly known as the paper of record seem to be melting down in their absurd denunciations of those with whom they disagree.

Krugman pretzelates on Social Security, while Dowd uses Kremlin logic on the mosque controversy. As she  quotes Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s  statement that “everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but they are not entitled to their own facts” she twists Rev. Graham’s statement on the patrilineal inheritance of faith in Islam into a new and unique form of dissemblance. Who ever said nothing important happens in August? We are watching the readership of the New York Times shrink down to a metaphorical Unter den Linden and Tiergarten as Pinch Sulzberger rants at his editors ordering divisions of nonexistent reporters to write on trends that exist only in certain neighborhoods of Manhattan.

And the most apt analogy to Congress today is a reality show, “Jersey Shore”. 435 Housemates in Washington, 8 on the television show, but it’s the TV show that’s killing in the ratings. You have  Angelina, the Kim Kardashian of Staten Island versus Nancy Pelosi; Jenny the Preying Mantis, aka Jan Schachowsky; Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino vs. Alan Grayson; and DJ Pauly D, aka Barney Frank…..

The drama on Jersey Shore includes booting Angelina off the show for not working her shift at the t shirt shore; JWWow cheating on her boyfriend, Snookie getting punched out in a bar, and Deena the party girl just partying, y’know? The main preoccupation is hooking up. Sounds like any given weekend in DC to me.

With impeachment proceedings against Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters the drama in Congress is reduced to farce, but they do have Health Care, Carbon Offsets, and a growing movement to legalize pot, which would fit right in with the Jersey crowd. Somehow I see Harry Reid as Snookie’s ex boyfriend, known as the Jerzee Pud.

As Democratic candidates run like the wind from their votes for the president’s agenda, many of the Republican candidates can’t seem to punch their way out of a paper bag. The messages are muddled and disoriented. However, the underlying message is anti-establishment, but in a highly non-traditional sense. For it is the believers in our country’s original principles that are in conflict with our establishment today.

In “Nation of Rebels: Why Counterculture Became Consumer Culture”, the authors make a persuasive argument that so-called rebellion only fuels a consumer economy based upon narcissism, emptiness, and greed. The increasing voyeurism of modern society is illustrated as well by Jersey Shore as it is by our legislators, who pass more laws based upon the desire to control others lives than on the underlying principles of our democracy based upon freedom and self-reliance.

The analogy between reality television and our Congress has become a very unfunny joke. Sound bites, attack ads, coordinated media blitzes, and false agendas have made our political process just as much a false construct as what they call reality television today.