Hold the Front Page!

THOSE news people are in a tizzy wondering if Palin will run for president, if Mitt is upset that Palin showed up in the same town just an hour before he made his announcement that he indeed would run, and if wan Tim Pawlenty, who plans to run, is getting lost in the shuffle. And wait--might Rudy run? Or Chris Christie? What about Huntsman? And holy cow!--The Donald is looking suspiciously like he might jump back in; how exciting would that be!

Besides all their wondering, exactly what do the journalists add to the presidential election process? Nada, just like those overly earnest kids in junior high from The Colonnade or The Clarion or The Hornet who were always hanging around the locker room or the science lab or the drama club, spiral note pads in their hot little hands, trying to scare up a story. They never did anything themselves, but were eager to write about what the other kids were doing.

Except for the salaries, adults who do this for a living are no different from their teenage counterparts. The lowly reporters do all the leg work, eventually turning the goods over to those photogenic gals and guys who smile at the camera and recount what the people who are actually doing something may be doing. And when they haven't a clue as to what those people are doing, that's an even bigger story, with even more reporters chiming in on how big a secret it is because they also don't know. Nobody knows, but soon enough we will all not know what they don't know.

It's exhausting, and it's still only 2011.