I watched some morning news on CNN today.  One of the main items was the reaction of Obama’s supporters to his vote for an amendment to FISA (official site).

For those who do not follow, a few days ago the senate voted for granting immunity to the telecommunication companies for participating in wiretapping program of the current administration.  In the past Obama opposed this legislation, but in the current vote he changed his mind and voted for the amendment.  As a result, many of Obama supporters came out criticizing him.  A lot of the criticism appeared on the social network component of Obama’s own campaign site (if you haven’t done it yet, take a look, there is a small Facebook on his website).  I think this is the story in a nutshell, but you can search for FISA and Obama for further details (here is an item on CNN’s website for example).

Now to my morning observation….

The main point, made a number of time during the morning news, was amusement, or even shock, about criticism taking place on Obama’s website.  How can it be that a campaign website hosts criticism of the candidate?!?!  After all, Obama is considered to be the one who harnessed the internet and reinvented election in the 21st century!  How come he allows criticism on his own campaign website?!  Is this what the new politics all about?

Leaving sarcasm aside, it really looked as if the anchors found it difficult to comprehend that there is a discussion going on a social networking platform on a candidate’s website.  And their shock/amusement went on and for the half an hour that i had the TV on.  However, what got lost in that shocking reveliation of new politics is the issue itself.  FISA did not get discussed and the change in Barak Obama’s stand deserved only limited attention (as a background to the virtual uprisal).  Most attention was focused on the fact that Barak Obama’s supporters are backlushing on him and they do it on his own campaign website.

The bottom line is that I think CNN missed the point.  In fact it was really surprising that a channel that markets itseld as technologically advanced (just remember all the touch screens obsession) has such an unsophisitcated amusement by technology as its main political item of the morning.  Not impressive at all.