Clue, Not Present

So Rep. John Dingell is worried that a feature on Dish TV's DVR function will mean people won't see political commercials.

This, of course, is evidence of how dumb a long tenure in Washington can make a person. The 85-year-old Michigan Democrat has been serving in Congress since 1955 (if he wins this November and makes it to June 2013 he'll be the longest-serving person in either house of Congress in U.S. history) and can't quite get his head around the idea that skipping political commercials is the point of the "hopping" feature on the DVR. It's designed to let viewers skip every commercial in a recorded program with the touch of a button, instead of fast-forwarding through them the way they do now.

Rep. Dingle seems to be of the opinion that his and others' political commercials serve to inform the public as they make their electoral decisions. This leads me to think he's been skipping them too, even without a DVR, because I can't recall a single political commercial since I've been paying attention to elections (1976, if you're curious) that had as its goal the provision of accurate information.

Without fail, they have been designed to present slanted and partial information, in the case of attack ads: "My opponent has never denied kicking puppies! Why won't he? Does he have something to hide?" Or they're designed to present no new information but reinforce voters' warm fuzzy feelings about the person they support: "My fellow Americans, I'm an American, and I hope on election day you will exercise your right as an American to vote for an American for this uniquely American office. Especially an American who doesn't kick American puppies."

Dingell asked the chairman of Dish TV if he understood the concerns of the politicians with regard to the hopping feature. The chairman said he understood consumers quite well, but since he was not a politician, he didn't appreciate their concerns.

Now there's a guy you could vote for.