This political season brings to mind the years (1999-2002) we lived in Heidelberg, Germany and had the grand Armed Forces Network cable channel which included: the NBC Today Show, Good Morning America and that other network. (can’t think of the name) AFN ran the Today Show and The View twice daily. For entertainment there were a lot of down market sitcoms that I found boring.

Even though Fox News had been on the air for quite some time we were still in the Clinton years and there were no media outlets that were not approved by the Clinton administration except for one hour of Rush on the radio network.

Then there was CNN International. It was beyond awful.

I chose to watch the Sky News Network. (I enjoyed Sunday Live with Adam Boulton) Then there was a funny little British channel I enjoyed watching. I think it was the BBC, and during the day there were interesting shows about gardening. When I wasn’t perusing the news on the internet down in the basement of the house, I watched the gardening show. One day, for some reason, the host was talking about fertilizer and suddenly the screen froze on some very fresh looking, manure, i.e. stable dung. I tried to change the channel but it wouldn’t change.

I shrugged my shoulders and went outside for a walk. (this was my year of freedom, traveling, shopping and fun)

When I came back inside, the television screen was still frozen. I did some laundry and read a book. Later I checked Fox News on the internet and read my email. My daughters were coming to visit us soon for their college break and I was excited.

Late that evening, when my husband came home, I pointed to the television screen. He looked at the stable dung and turned the television off. He turned it back on. It was still there. He tried to change the channel and couldn’t. We had no other television in Germany and didn’t want to buy another one over there.

My husband put in a DVD of Horatio Hornblower and we watched it.

I remember, I made steak, baked potatoes, dilled salad and steamed broccoli.

After we turned it off he put the television screen back on.

The stable dung was there again.

So it stayed. It became familiar. I noticed that our cat, Captain would watch it sometimes, then yawn, turn around and lick himself.

When the girls were due to arrive I drove to Frankfurt to pick them up. This was their first trip to Germany since they were babies. I was excited to show off our house to them. We had big plans to travel that summer.

After the girls checked out their rooms and the house and had settled down into the living room one of them glanced at the television and took a second look.

“Mom.” Charlotte said, “Is there something wrong with the T.V.?”

I looked up at the television and then back at Charlotte and said, “Oh no. There’s nothing wrong.”

Charlotte said, “Well, there’s poop on the screen!”

“That’s the gardening channel.” I said.

Charlotte made an attempt to change the channel and couldn’t do it either.

We spent so much time traveling that summer it didn’t matter that our television had a screen load of manure. Not when we had been to Paris, London, Dublin, Kilkenny, Zurich, Salzburg, and Rothenberg.

When I think about that television screen of dung I see the out-of-their-minds, Keith Olbermann, and Chris Matthews, and all of the rest of the supposedly, objective news reporters on the three networks, MSNBC and CNN. These people are just as frozen in their idealogies as that German television screen and many Americans have bought into their sales pitches.

One day when we turned on the television the manure was gone, we could change the channel and the girls enjoyed watching South Park in German.

Today the military and their families in Europe and elsewhere enjoy much more freedom of choice in their entertainment and news selections.

Hopefully, the American people will see through the dung of the polls, the press, the execrable exit polls and that Charlatan, Barack Obama and get out and vote for John McCain tomorrow.

UPDATE:

Man Parks Manure Near Democrats’ Campaign Office to Protest Obama.

That is a true headline.

Terry Reed, who owns a construction and excavation company in Whitehall, parked the trailer near the office on Saturday. He also posted a sign in the manure mocking Obama’s “change we can believe in” slogan as “a load of crap.”

“I think Obama’s plan is just one big old poop sandwich and we’re all going to have to take a bite,” he said.

I’m sorry, but this makes me smile.