And to think that all I ever use Twitter for is for following NASA space probes. Now Twitter has been embraced by both politicians and the "mainstream" media. I guess it was only a matter of time. TV news, particularly on the cable news, has always been dependent on sound bites. Those short pithy lines that politicians are only too happy to provide because they are easier than talking about and solving complex issues. I think that John Stewart probably has the best take on this issue:
One of the most depressing thing about both politics and about the news people who follow it is their eagerness to constantly dumb themselves down for the masses. This is probably why politicians always complain about "pork barrel" spending and make fun of things like planetariums and volcano monitoring. These things are usually obscure projects which people don't understand and are more likely to disapprove of. So they make easy targets and it's easier to talk about them than to actually fix this country's problems. It's also more fun for journalists and pundits to talk about these things than to sincerely research and analyze complex issues. So it makes perfect sense that politicians to embrace Twitter and its 140 character limit as the next big thing for blathering on and on without saying a thing....
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