Let's Shoot The Pundits

So I'm listening to Inside Maryland Politics this morning, and Steiner has some guy on to talk about what we learned about Maryland as a result of the election. His first sentence is "Despite what the skeptics said, the computer touch screen machines worked." There is a bit of polite back and forth between the guest and Steiner until Steiner changes the subject. See, this is why we here could never be radio hosts on civil radio. We would have grabbed the guy by his lapels and said "ARE YOU EFFIN' KIDDING ME? You moron! It's not an emotional skepticsm! there is no way to know if they worked or not without A) open sourcing the code for the machines and B) providing some means of external verification!" Then we would have thrown him out of the studio.

If you think I'm complaining about a localized problem, I'm not. I've heard utterly fatuous arguments like this on CNN before. All pundits ought to be locked together in a single large room for a never ending panel discussion that is never broadcast. This gives them purpose but saves us the trouble of their existence.