The advent of the 24/7 news media and the blogosphere had led to critical attention being focused on the most inconsequential and irrelevant issues I have ever had the misfortune to listen to. This is an open letter to the electorate of all the things I don’t care about but for some ridiculous reason, many of them do.

1. I don’t care whether Barack Obama is Muslim or not. Even though there has been overwhelming evidence provided by the Obama campaign and from his life story to verify that he is indeed Christian, let’s assume for the sake of argument that he is a follower of Islam. So what? Why is that anymore of an issue than if he was Catholic like JFK or Mormon like Mitt Romney? The whole “controversy” rests on the assumption that all Muslims support Al Qaeda and terrorism in general. It also assumes that Obama is some sort of Muslim Manchurian candidate. Each premise is ridiculous on its own merit, and exponentially more so when combined together. The average Muslim has as much connection to Al Qaeda as the average Christian has to the KKK. This is why even if I ignore all the evidence to the contrary and believe Obama is Muslim, I don’t care.
2. I don’t care whether Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig Palin or not. There seems to be a rabid amount of concern about whether Sarah actually gave birth to baby Trig or whether Palin’s teenage daughter Bristol did. Why does anybody care? Basic human biology eliminates the very possibility that Bristol is Trig’s mother. According to the McCain campaign, Bristol is due late December. That would put conception nine-months earlier around late March. Trig was born April 18, 2008. You do the math. For the sake of argument, let’s say Bristol was Trig’s mother. So what? Why would I even possibly care? It has absolutely no bearing on anything outside of the Palin family. Therefore, I don’t care.
3. I don’t care what any of the candidate’s preachers or their religious supporters had to say in their church. Preachers, especially evangelical preachers, have a penchant for bombast in their sermons. So don’t bother telling me what Rev. Jeremiah Wright (Obama’s former pastor), Rev. John Hagee (McCain supporter), or Rev. Ed Kalnins (Palin’s former pastor) said. To act as if everything they said is what the respective candidates believed also is to try to make them accountable by association. Do you agree with everything your preacher has said? Didn’t think so. Very, very few do. Therefore I don’t care.
4. I don’t care if any of the candidates wear a flag anywhere on their body. All the nonsense about lapel pins and symbolic displays of patriotism has hopefully passed like a pointless storm. As I previously wrote, patriotism isn’t about symbolism, but concrete actions. They can tattoo their chests with the flag; I don’t care. Presenting a detailed policy plan to address one of the many problems this nation faces is far more patriotic than any campaign flag display.

It is stunning to me the amount of time and effort that has been wasted on these subjects. There are far too many people who continue to fixate on pointless issues and conspiracy theories that are not only demonstrably wrong, but that would be completely irrelevant even if they were true. It’s comparable to twiddling with buttons on the car stereo to evaulate what kind of vehicle you should get.

America, snap out of it before we end up with a four year lease on another lemon.