Political Mess(age)

This is an era of political messes. Not just in India but everywhere across the globe. We have gaffes being committed by politicians cutting across nationalities. Recently, Obama was forced to apologize after his campaign team had distributed videos which showed Hillary Clinton in bad light. Another incident involved Sarkozy denying allegations that he was drunk while attending a press conference, besides stirring up a controversy with his holiday on a yatch, immediately following his victory.

Back home in India, blunders would be a more apt term for the acts that our politicians have time and again, showed they are capable of. Be it openly speaking against their own party policies (some might put it down to freedom of expression) or throwing baseless allegations against anyone who shows a semblance of opposition, they just about manage to take the cake.
But then as always one could with some introspection before jumping to any conclusion.

The media, which oscillates from playing helpful sidekick to dirt thrower, plays a major role in playing up these little bloopers. Ever ready for a sound byte and even more willing to get their hands on anything they seem worthy of a "Breaking News" tag, they follow absolutely no standards. With the number of news channels on the bloom the fight for the TRPs only get tougher. So, when anybody who's barely a somebody, says or does something that the society in general would not expect him/her to say/do, it's blown out of proportions. And in a media dominated world, the leaders and the hopefuls can seldom hope to neglect it. With this in mind they happily go on with their spin doctoring ways. But then with almost everyone more than eager to jump onto this bandwagon, space becomes a constraint. What follows is a merry go round, with today's favorites becoming tomorrow's whipping material.

Here's where it becomes difficult to pin point the actual defaulter. Is it the politician who commits the gaffe, mostly unintentional, or the media which is only too eager to highlight every such act?? After all, the politician is also another human being, despite his mostly debauched ways, and is entitled to make a mistake once in a while. The media on its part does its job of reporting news, though sometimes they are guilty of creating their own news.

A tough decision as it maybe, but like most things else ,the best way to settle the issue will be to put the blame on the politicians!!