Like any junkie worth her weight in used hypodermic needles, I take my news any way I can get it. Anywhere, anytime and from anyone with the goods: Fox News, CNN, WSJ, KFI talk radio (Trustworthy, up-to-the-minute L.A./O.C./CA/national news, plus the likes of Rush Limbaugh, John & Ken, Mo' Kelly, Tim Conway, Jr., The Fabulous Lisa Ann Walter, George Noory and so many more!), BBC News, CNN International, Financial Times, France 24, Daily Show, Rolling Stone and whatever else my gritty nails can scratch up in a train station cafe or a rest stop outside of Richmond. I used to get a serious fix from Chris Matthews. Then, circa 2008 he turned weird, rude, subjective and totally unaware of himself. I still watch on occasion, hoping he'll come back. When I do watch, I think of David Letterman in a 2009 interview with a bearded and seemingly addled Joaquin Phoenix. Letterman ends the interview with, "Joaquin, I'm sorry you couldn't be here tonight.". Chris, I'm sorry you couldn't be here.

Simply because I occasionally lean to the right on various issues, some friends and fam erroneously presume my news and political intake must come solely from Fox News. As Dwight Schrute would say, "False." To boot, even if it did, Fox News' reporting and anchors -not their primetime, opinion programming- are as viable and objective as anyone's coverage. The fact is, I consider myself to be largely Independent/Libertarian.

So, as of late, across the political media landscape, in the frenzy of RNC and DNC convention coverage, I cannot help but notice a dichotomy, an almost schizophrenic division of Democrats, amongst themselves. I don't mean a philosophical division amidst the party, I mean a Jekyll and Hyde division within core individuals. Fighting their own common sense and arguing with themselves, à la Liz Lemon or Larry David in vicious mirror-fights. Hilarious on 30 Rock and Curb Your Enthusiasm, sad and querulous on national news.

To cite a few:

Former president Bill Clinton backtracked on his praise of Mitt Romney and his qualifications to hold office. First stating, “this is good work…there is no question that the man has been a governor and has a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold.” Bubba quickly recanted this. He also "refined" to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, comments about renewing Bush tax cuts and praising private equity companies, including Romney's Bain Capital.

Corey Booker, mayor of Newark, NJ also praised private capital investment, admitting to David Gregory on Meet The Press that attacks on Bain and private equity were "nauseating", made him "uncomfortable" and offended him on a "personal level". He enacted takesies-backsies very quickly via his own YouTube video.

Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley's organic claim on Face the Nation that "We are not better off after four years ..." was walked back forthwith and all too quickly on CNN's Starting Point said, “We are clearly better off as a country ..." Politicians seem to spill their souls on Sunday morning talk shows, only to retract those souls on Monday morning. Sunday nights in D.C. must be tough.

Most glaringly, with steady eyes and an Obi Wan-like mind hold, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz claimed, clear as a bell on audio, “We know, and I’ve heard no less than Ambassador Michael Oren say this, that what the Republicans are doing is dangerous for Israel.” She then denied having quoted the ambassador, after Oren himself said he argued no such thing. Wasserman Schultz added a double-scoop to her cone of lies and further claimed, with indignity, “I didn’t say he said that. And unfortunately, that comment was reported by a conservative newspaper. Not surprising that they would deliberately misquote me.” The odour of mendacity is strong with this one.

Watch the following videos and tell me what you see. Do you see reality? Or, as Anderson Cooper calls yet another of Wasserman Schultz' misspeaks during an interview about the controversial, convention vote to add "God" and "Jerusalem" to the Democratic party platform, do you see "an alternate universe"?

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It's all so Alice in Wonderland. Such a Mad Hatter's Tea Party! Wild hats and all!

Mad Hatter: Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Alice: Riddles? Now let me see... why is a raven like a writing desk?

Mad Hatter: I beg your pardon?

Alice: Why is a raven like a writing desk?

Mad Hatter: Why is a what?!

March Hare: Careful, she's stark ravin' mad!

Alice: But it's your silly riddle. You just said...

Mad Hatter: Easy, don't get excited!

March Hare: How about a nice cup of tea?

Alice: "Have a cup of tea," indeed! Well I'm sorry, but I just haven't the time!

Ironically, if you do a man-on-the-street segment, I'm willing to bet almost no one will even know who Debbie Wasserman Schultz is, let alone recognize her blatant inability to tell the truth from moment to moment. On the flip side, every single person you ask would know all about Clint Eastwood and his empty chair.

The legendary actor's-actor and director's-director deigned to bring a little theater to a rather stale RNC convention -a standard tenet of classical drama and philosophy, the empty chair as symbolism- and he was not only splattered across every mainstream website, newspaper and broadcast of popular note, but labelled therein as a "kook", "unhinged" and "losing it". Rachel Maddow snarked, "That was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen at a political convention in my entire life.” Piers Morgan said Eastwood was "going bonkers" and asked interviewees, "Weren’t you in pain while he was up there?”. Andrea Mitchell, a once-serious and -objective journalist, in serious danger of going the Chris Matthews-way sniped that the speech "was exceedingly strange. It just seemed like a very strange, unscripted moment."

That's because it was unscripted, Mrs. Greenspan. Clint Eastwood is an actor and an improvisor and despite advice from "everyone but the janitor" on what to do, he went his own way and it was brilliant. He wasn't scripted, he didn't have crib notes and he sure as hell didn't use a Teleprompter. I understood his technique; I got the symbolism. It was an eloquent method to dramatize his point. In fact, there were three:

“I had three points I wanted to make,” Eastwood said in his first après-convention interview with Paul Miller of The Carmel Pine Co

ne. “That not everybody in Hollywood is on the left, that Obama has broken a lot of the promises he made when he took office, and that the people should feel free to get rid of any politician who’s not doing a good job. But I didn’t make up my mind exactly what I was going to say until I said it.”

Still, this is how modern Democrats and supposed-, pseudo-journalists fight. Dirty, personal, uninformed and way below the belt. Mental disease, aging and cheap name-calling are the tools they use? It's shameful. NPR called former Democratic Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm's DNC Howard Dean-styled convention speech "high-spirited"; ABC News called it "rousing" and CBS News said "energetic". If Rush Limbaugh calls her an unstable wackadoo, they'll tr

y to run him out of town like, well, the way they try to run Rush Limbaugh out of town on a regular basis.

For that matter, if Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, George Will or Bill O'Reilly called Ms. Longoria "a smart cookie", as Piers Morgan so insultingly did after conducting an interview about, not her upcoming speech, but her dress and shoes at length, well ... I am loathe to think of the misogynist-oriented attacks and repercussions therein.

Whether in vitriol-soaked anger or polite, intellectual discourse, when one waxes negative about a Democrat, specifically those nicely boxed into liberal platform-designated, "minority" groups, the critic is instantly labelled a racist, a misogynist, a sexist, a bigot and so on. Counterpoint: are those individuals flinging slings and arrows at Mr. Eastwood, ageists? That's pretty low: making fun of the elderly.

Eva Longoria, by the way, spoke before Obama, much in the same programming design as Clint Eastwood did before Romney. Remember what she said?

Exactly.

Sick of it all, regardless of whom is saying what? Don't give up altogether. There is another candidate, running as the B Party candidate. Check her out! She's an absolute doll! Yes, we glam!

P.S. Need a little onus probandi and freedom of the press refresher? Voila! Book III of my Savannah of Williamsburg series of historical-fiction! Savannah of Williamsburg: Ben Franklin, Freedom & Freedom of the Press.