Me too, but from the inside. I spent a lot of time watching C-SPAN and similar “raw footage” sites in my youth. It was fun seeing inside the sausage factory. T

Me too, but from the inside. I spent a lot of time watching C-SPAN and similar “raw footage” sites in my youth. It was fun seeing inside the sausage factory. The raw footage has changed substantially in recent years. I watched recent senate hearings and, instead of bringing expert witnesses to educate senators to help them better do their job, it seems hearings (and basically any other chance at being in front of a camera) is an opportunity to PWN the “other side” in a series of 30s sound bites. Senators yell at each other, talk past each other and their guests, fall back on their pre-written “serious burn!” scripts no matter where the conversation goes, and insult the guests they invite in to speak. Everyone is freaking out about whether or not everything was shared with “their side” prior to the hearing because they need to have pre written burns to score more “points” than the other side. You see these 30s clips floating around the internet and wonder how they can all come from the same hearing. It’s because they are all rapid firing a bunch of pre-written dribble optimized for 30s sound bites. I don’t know how we come back from this.