The essence of a four-page story in today's Politico -- "A new era of accusation and innuendo" -- was poignantly captured in this brief passage:
The decline of traditional media and the rise of viral emails and partisan Web and cable TV platforms has meant the near-collapse of common facts, believed across the political spectrum.
In addition to poignant, one could even say horrifying. Or at least it seems so at times: There's a new age upon us, one of electronic ignorance and instant reaffirmations of unmitigated idiocy. Recent "news" stories seem to prove just that.
But to fervently believe in a truly New Age of even higher ignorance would require a willing ignorance in itself: that is, a willingness to dis- or un-remember the age of "Ma, Ma, where's my pa? Gone to the White House, ha-ha-ha"; or the age in which John Adams struggled to sack pernicious rumors of his "monarchism"; or the age of communist witchhunts of such anticonstitutional intensity as to morph into the nearly unbelievable; or the age of Lincoln as villain, the age of Calhoun as saint.
And all without the Internet or cable TV.
It's the only remembrance that keeps me sane.