Most of the coverage of the 2012 election has been dominated by talk of dogs and secret service sex scandals and working mothers. Why?

The Daily Download's Howard Kurtz wonders the same thing.

 

How did we wind up with a political and media culture where Seamus the dog gets more coverage than the Buffett Rule?

I started pondering this when we all got swept up in the spectacle of Hilary Rosen denigrating Ann Romney for not working (though rather than being deeply offended, the candidate’s wife proclaimed this an “early birthday present.”)

That, in turn, followed our collective enthrallment over Romney aide Eric Fehrnstrom describing their Etch a Sketch operation, which in turn followed the uproar over Rush Limbaugh calling a law student a slut, which followed…well, it’s hard to remember at this point.

Each of these episodes, considered separately, contains elements of substance that were soon overwhelmed by the rhetoric emanating from the media echo chamber. Collectively, they suggest that what should be a serious campaign in hard economic times has turned into a spectacle in which we are amusing ourselves to death.