Buzzards and Journalists: How They Are Alike

• The cartoon pictured two gaunt buzzards, obviously very hungry, sitting on a bare limb on a leafless tree in a barren wilderness. One says to the other, "Patience, hell! I'm gonna kill something."
• The election excitement is over. Obama's moves have been flawless and his appointments impressive. We are in the holiday season when much else clamors for time and focus. What are the poor political journalists to do to grab attention?
• You would think the bleepin Blagojevich scandal would be bleepin juicy enough for them. But Obama is the center of the political world right now, so they are straining every nerve, looking under every rock, parsing every word he or his staff utter or write, following every lead large or small and otherwise turning the universe upside down to find something that stinks linking Obama to the Governor. Leading the pack, of course, are the slobbering Republican operatives who have been dispirited since November 4. Right alongside is Fox news drooling at even the prospect of some hint of scandal. But even the more sober journalists can't resist the hunt.
• Meanwhile, out in the real world many struggle to pay the mortgage, keep or find a job, and otherwise stay afloat in these perilous times. The rest are too busy with Christmas, Hanukkah, or the non-offensive generic "holidays" to care about the trivial pursuit the hungry birds are undertaking.
  
• So leave Obama alone unless you find something worth reporting and go spend some money shopping. That would at least help the economy, while all this furor over trivialities merely annoys.
• Be patient, you buzzards, until something dies, and you can follow the bad odor to relieve your post-election hunger for some Obama excitement. Meanwhile, I can understand your feeling that you may be forced to kill something.