Opening Comments - Politics

Hi everyone, it's my first entry ever so I'll open it with a common issue - politics (we'll eventually go to other topics):

FLIP FLOPPING: I've heard the idea of flip-flopper freely tossed around ever since the George W. Bush and John Kerry presidential campaigns. The thing I wonder is this. Isn't the politician supposed to represent what (s)he perceives to be the will of the people? Thus if the will of the people (e.g. the strong majority) change, then should the politician cling to his or her own ideals or should there be a shift? One might say that "flip-flopping" is a good thing because it better aligns the representative of the people with the constituents. While we are do elect politicians partially based on who the person is, I think we do expect them to try to be in line with what we want. This isn't to say a politician should ignore the minority - the politician should of course be trying to mitigate damages or find every one wins solutions as much as possible. There are also times when, the politician is aware of facts and evidence so compelling which the greater public does not know, that the politician should act contrary to the will of the people. I will admit, I do not quite know where the line is drawn there.

NEWS REPORTING: The interesting thing about news coverage is that no newspaper or TV has ever put a grid together to show exactly each politician currently stands on important issues. Instead the news puts more emphasis on where a politician is, how the politician is in the polls, what tactics are being used, who won a debate (according to whom? based on what?). Of far better use to the reader/viewer/listener is information that (s)he will use in the voting booth. When I vote, I won't vote based on if Candidate X won State Y, or Candidate B was campaigning on the West Coast on Tuesday, then spent the Holidays with relatives, or had too many wrinkles, or hosted a Hollywood star.

NEWS ORGANIZATION ENDORSEMENT: I'm sure this is old, but I have to say it anyways. How can a newspaper endorse a candidate? I thought news reporting is supposed to be as unbiased as possible. By endorsing a candidate the newspaper taints its own articles and reports as potentially being biased.