Things We've Learned in the Last Month of the Election

The past month has been one of the craziest periods in an election that I can remember.  It started with Mitt Romney looking sunk, only to be followed by his campaign's improbable resurgence.  All of the craziness has revealed quite a bit.  Here's what I've seen revealed, in bullet point form:

• With the blatant politicization of the attack on the Libyan embassy by Republicans, we now have an inkling of what it would have been like had Al Gore, and not George W. Bush, been president on 9/11.  
• Despite the fact that Romney's willingness to use the events in Benghazi to go after the president before the dust had even settled made him look completely opportunistic and unfit to be a leader, only a month later, he is making this issue the centerpiece of his campaign, as if he previous, damning actions had never taken place.  The fact that the media is letting him get away with it is just more proof that our public discourse is built on amnesia.
• The fact that the post-debate coverage has centered on facial expressions rather than substance, or on the lies being told repeatedly by Romney and Ryan, is just more proof that our political process is a media circus taking place in a post-factual world.
•  The fact that conservatives were calling the vice-presidential debate a "draw" (rather than a Ryan win) and are already desperately trying to change the subject to Libya is proof that Ryan clearly lost the debate.
• The re-release of then Senator Obama's 2007 comments at Hampton University are part of a blatant attempt to stir up white racial resentment by the right-wing press.  Such resentment is now clearly and openly a part of the conservative political mainstream.
• Romney has not and will not be punished for his strategy of lying his ass off at every turn.
• The fact that Romney and Ryan still have a chance at winning the White House despite their taped comments showing a complete contempt for half the country's population is just another example of how in a democracy, the people get the government that they deserve, and they get it with a vengeance.