Behind the mask

The election coverage coincided with my Halloween blogging vacation, so I had the unusual luxury of watching television and listening to radio coverage of the events.  By the time the post-election analyses were wrapping up yesterday, I suppose I had spent 12-15 hours monitoring the conventional media, and last evening it struck me that in that entire time, one item received absolutely no attention.

On election night I channel-surfed ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and PBS, and for postelection coverage I also listened to NPR and BBC.  As I think back now, in all those hours of coverage by all those media outlets and all those analysts and commentators, I never heard a SINGLE COMMENT about the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Not a single word.  Of course, I could have missed it while switching channels, but every single viewpoint expressed focused on the economy and the policies of the Obama administration as factors in the election.  In 48 hours I NEVER heard the word "Afghanistan" or the word "war."

It's like it's not going on.