Obama Speaks but will Bill Maher Listen?

Earlier this evening on 60 Minutes Barack Obama said:

"In the era of 24 hour cable news cycles that the loudest shrillest voices get the most attention... And so one of the things that I'm trying to figure out is how can we make sure that civility is interesting... And that hopefully I will be a good model for the fact that you don't have to yell and holler to make your point and to be passionate about your position."

Hopefully this is a wake up call to fans of Bill Maher, John Stewart and Steven Colbert. Although rarely subjected to the same level of criticism, their influence degrades the quality of political discussion equally as much as their more notorious conservative counterparts, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage. Everyone could benefit from taking more time to understand the complex issues that we face today and the manipulations, sound bites, jokes and polarization that these pundits rely on are not helpful. Lets turn them all off and pickup a newspaper instead.