Griper Blade: Super Tuesday Confession

One of the downsides to Super Tuesday was that it pushed every other news story to the side. In watching the returns on CNN, the only information I got about Tuesday's tornadoes -- and the death toll -- came from the infrequent breaks by the weather guy. A bona fide natural disaster was going on in mid-america and it was no more important than reports of golf ball sized hail. The big question for the talking heads was whether this would effect polling in the affected areas.

I guess there are some stories which just suck up all the oxygen in the news room. But, as I pointed out yesterday, talking heads are always talking, but that doesn't mean they always have something to say. Maybe the rule should be that, once someone says something stupid or obvious, it's time for a news break. I really don't need to be told that people don't vote for people they don't like or that 51% of left-handed Episcopalian steamfitters have broken for Obama. There's information and then there's some overpaid moron in a suit burning time until new numbers come in. If you don't have anything useful to say about the returns, talk about something else.

So, as tornadoes whipped through the south, I'm watching Wolf Blitzer repeat what someone just said in a speech. I'm watching John Roberts screw around with a touchscreen, just to show what it can do. I'm looking at pie charts breaking down which candidate Catholic Poles voted for and which candidate Inuits voted for. I don't freakin' care. In fact, they don't care -- they're just wasting time with minutia until something comes in.

So it was that the high profile admission of war crimes was lost in the shuffle. It wasn't even weather. CIA director Gen. Michael Hayden admitted that three subjects had been waterboarded...

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