{"id":56,"date":"2007-07-04T05:38:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-04T05:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.jmatt.net\/?p=56"},"modified":"2013-11-28T02:36:54","modified_gmt":"2013-11-28T02:36:54","slug":"celebrity-endorsements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/?p=56","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity Endorsements?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" align=left src=\"http:\/\/www2.kucinich.us\/files\/images\/Untitled-4.jpg\" width=200 height=118 alt=\"Letterman and Kucinich\"><\/p>\n<p>Maybe this story should be titled &#8220;Did He or Didn&#8217;t He?&#8221;  And maybe it shouldn&#8217;t make a difference anyway.  Our &#8220;news&#8221; media has become so obssessed with feeding us endless trivia about a few people that they declare &#8220;newsworthy&#8221; while ignoring real issues.  And just because a person is a famous entertainer doesn&#8217;t make his political views any more valid than anyone else&#8217;s.  But it still seems just a little strange that when somebody as well-known and popular as David Letterman endorses (or seems to endorse) a presidential candidate, it gets absolutely no mention from the media.<br clear=all><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Of course, that was a rhetorical statement.  I think I know why the media are ignoring Letterman&#8217;s endorsement.  That&#8217;s because the candidate involved is <a href=\"http:\/\/kucinich.us\" Target=\"Offsite\">Dennis Kucinich<\/a>, whom the media would prefer to ignore because he&#8217;s so embarrassingly right on all the issues.  If they mention him at all, it&#8217;s only to remind us that nobody is going to vote for him.<\/p>\n<p>\nSo did Letterman really endorse Dennis Kucinich?  That&#8217;s a good question, especially considering that only a few months ago, number 1 on his list of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbs.com\/latenight\/lateshow\/top_ten\/index\/php\/20070430.phtml\" Target=\"Offsite\">&#8220;Top Ten Signs Your Newspaper Is In Trouble&#8221;<\/a> was &#8220;You endorsed Dennis Kucinich&#8221;.  But, on June 29, Letterman concluded an interview with Kucinich by shaking his hand and saying &#8220;Well, you&#8217;ve got my vote.&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/youtube.com\/watch?v=RLem_NIDqxc\">video<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cleveland.com\/living\/plaindealer\/index.ssf?\/base\/living-0\/1183106362269070.xml&#038;coll=2\" Target=\"Offsite\">article<\/a>).  Admittedly, both men were laughing at the time, and it was at the end of an interview that varied from serious to humorous.  But, where I come from, when you shake a man&#8217;s hand and say &#8220;You&#8217;ve got my vote&#8221;, that&#8217;s serious business, whether or not the other hand is holding a half-pint. <\/p>\n<p>\nI would really love to see some follow-up on this issue.  But I&#8217;m betting that most of the media are scared to ask Letterman if he was serious, because they&#8217;re afraid he might say &#8220;Yes&#8221;.  And they don&#8217;t want to admit that anybody they consider &#8220;important&#8221; thinks Kucinich is a better candidate than the ones they keep forcing down our throats.  You know damn well that if Letterman had shaken hands with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama and said &#8220;You&#8217;ve got my vote&#8221;, the &#8220;news&#8221; shows would be playing that clip endlessly while talking heads droned about the impact on the race.  But any mention of someone other than their precious darlings is unacceptable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Maybe this story should be titled &#8220;Did He or Didn&#8217;t He?&#8221; And maybe it shouldn&#8217;t make a difference anyway. Our &#8220;news&#8221; media has become so obssessed with feeding us endless trivia about a few people that they declare &#8220;newsworthy&#8221; while ignoring real issues. And just because a person is a famous entertainer doesn&#8217;t make his&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/?p=56\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Celebrity Endorsements?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9mOtr-U","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.redhorse.me\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}