Political Junkie? Know Your Blogs & Websites!

Most of us Boomers came of age in the 60’s and 70’s. Those were politically charged times—Civil Rights Movement, Viet Nam protests, the assassinations of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy, and the rise of demands by women for equal rights. As a result, many of us became political junkies. We argued with our parents, marched in the streets, and perhaps even defied established authority in large and small ways. TV allowed our generation to keep up with events around the country and the world in almost real time.

The issues driving the news in the 60’s and 70’s are still with us, none resolved. There is no shortage of things to have a strong opinion about. Today, however, information is available instaneously—a political junkie’s heaven. Plus, we can read or hear events interpreted in at least five different ways with a tap on the keyboard or a click on the universal remote. The numerous political websites and blogs and their philosophical bents are difficult to keep straight. Can we trust what we find on The Salon? How about at Twitchy. com? What’s the agenda? Does every website have a bone to pick?

Here are three sets of links that will help you sort through the maze of political blogs and websites:

Non-partisan sites:

More conservative leaning:

More liberal leaning:

It may make us feel good to see and hear our opinions validated by others, but we probably should be reading across the spectrum of views in a search for an understanding of what drives others’ thinking. We might then be able to have conversations rather than shouting matches. Happy web surfing and reading—it certainly looks like it is going to be another interesting, to say the least, political season.