A Real Democracy
While reading a newspaper article today, I happened upon a sentence mentioning everyone’s favorite tubes expert, Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, who apparently had a little too much work done on his home, at least too much to convince Federal Prosecutors. But anyway, I wanted to know what was going on with Ted, so I typed “Ted Stevens” into google and hit return.
The top three sites were as follows:
- The Wikipedia article on Ted Stevens
- The Wikipedia article on “Series of Tubes”
- Ted Stevens’ Official Site
Tubes references aside, what has happened here is that more people are going to the impartial collectively edited, collaboratively constructed, online encyclopedia than to the senator’s own site, which is filled with, well, bullshit.
I decided to check my results against a few other politicians. I think I got a good cross-section in the short list below.
- John McCain’s official site comes up first, followed by his Wikipedia article
- Same thing for Orrin Hatch
- Same thing for Chuck Schumer.
- Same thing for Nancy Pelosi
Personally, I’d rather see the Wikipedia article first for all politicians, but having it appear first for those mired in scandal is a good start toward that goal. At least we know that the unbiased truth is being saught by the majority.
But when you think about it, that’s really the only thing that those four have in common. None of them are under federal investigation right now. Maybe that’s why more people are taking them at their word than are going to their Wikipedia pages…