Blogs

It’s a sad commentary on the state of our public discourse that clever misnaming of issues can totally recast what should be substantive policy discussions. The most obvious example: adding the suffix “gate” onto anything that smacks of real or alleged political wrong-doing in the wake of Richard Nixon’s Watergate is usually sufficient to muddy the waters beyond all reality; often it demolishes any chance for serious debate. Remember Billygate, NannyGate, CoinGate, CableGate and all the rest?

Last week’s Congressional oversight hearing on the Lifeline program vacillated between fact and fiction.

Thanks to efforts by Springwire and Consumer Action, more than 1,400 Americans who benefit from the program wrote to tell the committee how important Lifeline phone service is to low-income households.

I’ve spent a lot of time on the road these past six months, talking with people coast-to-coast, with lots of stops in between. I’ve been to large cities and small towns, colleges and community halls, red states and blue, talking about communications and how our current news and information infrastructure is disserving democracy.