Over the last couple weeks, it has become my morning routine to watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Show while eating breakfast and drinking tea. I not only get a lot of laughs out of these shows but learn a lot about having a proper perspective on the issues. Not so much who is right and wrong necessarily but whether the stuff the country is talking about is really that important in the first place. While chuckling at skillful deconstruction of last week's vice presidential debate by Stewart and Colbert, I had the sinking feeling that the one of the fools in the whole equation was myself for having spent much time at all worrying about whether Palin or Biden would end up making the first gaffes -- instead of devoting my time to educating myself and others about the truly important issues.
So tonight, I plan to tune in to overnight on how Obama and McCain will take up the issues rather than engage in further character assassination. I suspect that we won't be here to totally avoid negative campaigning tonight, given how the McCain campaign has already promised to focus on questioning Obama's character and Obama's determined response to not become swiftboated (Ã la Kerry). however one can still hope that the two candidates will actually have serious answers to serious questions.
Of course this realization will stop me from watching Comedy Central – the shows are entertainment after all!