O.D.-ing on Politics

I’ve been a casual politics user for a long time. I started experimenting in college, mostly to get back at my Limbaugh-loving parents. Maybe I stepped it up a little in ‘00, and ‘04, but didn’t everyone? I didn’t go chronic; I just partied to Wolf Blitzer every now and then.

CNN was my gateway drug. The ‘08 election season started in ‘06, and I’ve been on a bender since. My habit looks something like this:

Print: Time, Newsweek, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Week, New York, and The New York Times

TV: Meet the Press, Face the Nation, Real Time, the occasional Countdown With Keith Olbermann, The Daily Show, Colbert, the odd Nightly News With Brian Williams, and on primary nights, CNN

Web: Wonkette, Gawker, sometimes Politico

The stuff is everywhere. It’s too easy to get my hands on. I’m losing sleep, staying up to hear Colbert’s reaction to the evangelicals’ attacks on McCain. I don’t want to eat. I want to read about why Rahm Emmanuel is mad at Bill Clinton. It’s affecting my work, my relationships: I can’t have a civil conversation about the stuff, because if the person I’m talking to disagrees on Hillary’s record, or Obama’s lack of one, I become a blowhard, citing facts and quoting pundits until I’m ranting like a crazy person.

I have to stop. Put some space between myself and current events. Maybe detox with something toxic like In Touch and US Weekly.