It was already 12:58 a.m., and my friend and I only had two minutes to find the right channel before we missed the beginning. “Oh, stop,” I said as I saw President Bush’s face on one of the channels. We both paused and listened as the newscaster discussed the economic crisis in Arabic. “Damn it, keep going,” someone else chipped in. A few seconds later, Wolf Blitzer’s impish frame took over the screen and I knew that we’d reached the Promised Land—the final presidential debate.
Over the past year, the election has been unavoidable—but only in America. For nearly two months, I have been trying to follow the presidential election from Morocco. The presidential debates didn’t start until one in the morning, and because I was in Amsterdam at the time, the vice presidential debate didn’t begin until three.
But I’m glad that I stayed up until the early hours of the morning, because now I can die happy, knowing that Sarah Palin winked at me from all the way across the Atlantic. I’ve been doing my best to follow the election, and the news in general, but it has been difficult to get anything beyond a few broad strokes. I realized how out of touch I was recently when I e-mailed a friend asking what was new. He responded that the Rays were a game away from the World Series, the price of oil was at a two-year low and the Times was calling Obama a lock for president. So, exactly the same as when I left, right? Not even close.
Growing up in New York and going to school in D.C., I’ve grown accustomed to the media echo chamber, the prevalence of instant punditry, as the talking heads blow every miniscule event up to earth-shattering importance. Watching cable news on a regular basis, you have to wonder how our country makes it from one day to the next. Away from the states, I no longer view current events on a minute-by-minute basis. I try, at least once a day, to check what’s going on in the world, but often I am not even able to accomplish that modest goal. When I do have time to go trolling the internet for news, I act as my own Week in Review, watching stories develop and identifying the common threads that run through them.
It was difficult for the first couple of weeks to make do with the news void. At the end of the day I would open up The New York Times website and be caught off guard by what was reported. It proved disconcerting to jump to the end of the story, to miss all the steps along the way only to be left with the post-event analysis. It’s like what I imagine traveling high in the mountains is like—you don’t really notice the thinness of the air until you’re gasping for breath. Two months in, I think my lungs have gotten a little stronger. It’s getting to the point where I barely notice my shortness of breath.
When I come home at the end of December, I’m going to be returning to a different place. When I step off that plane, I can’t wait to feel the rush of instant punditry and overanalysis wash over me like so much oxygen-rich air.
