By Christopher Gabriel, Blog Harbor

In what proved to be an historic evening at the Iowa Caucuses, Barack Obama became the first African-American to win a primary or caucus.  In a state with a population that is 95% white, it’s quite obvious it wasn’t the minority vote, be it black or Hispanic, that put him over the top.  Not when you win decisively by bringing in 38% of the voters over second place finisher John Edwards, who finished with 30%, and Hillary Clinton rounding out the top three with 29%.  In the most simplistic terms, Obama’s vision of hope and change won out over experience. 

On the other side of the aisle, Mike Huckabee ran away from his Republican counterparts receiving 34% of the vote besting Mit Romney’s 25%.  Former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee and Sen. John McCain of Arizona tied with 13% and Rep. Ron Paul of Texas got 10%.  All in all, it was a fascinating start to what will no doubt become a grueling, slugfest-in-the-trenches campaign.  Mud-slinging and denigration will be frowned upon . . . and then vigorously endorsed by candidates suggesting they are merely responding to their opponents attacks. 

When all was said and done, politics carried the evening . . . and then, Britney showed up. 

For a political non-wonk like myself, I avoid the insane build-up to a presidential campaign no different than I avoid the annual pre-draft talk for the NFL: Speculation from “experts” on who’s drafting whom, or how a certain candidate is expected to do with voters 18-24 means absolutely nothing to me.  Only when the game is on do I allow the players into my living room.  And so it was, no sooner did I begin to embrace the beginning of The Road to the White House, CNN, FOX News and MSNBC each ran their “Breaking News” crawls alerting us to yet another Britney Spears incident.

Leave it to Britney to try and upstage the Iowa Caucuses.  Only timing held her back as the breaking news crawl appeared in the analysis portion of the evening well after the results were in.  But today, the day after the caucuses, was quite another story.

No sooner would any of the cable news outlets run pieces on the candidates and the upcoming New Hampshire primary, the news of Britney followed immediately afterward.  If you haven’t heard — and really, has anyone not heard — police were called to her home because of a dispute involving the return of her children to Kevin Federline, per their custody agreement.  After taking between two to three hours to resolve the conflict, the children were turned over to Federline but Spears was removed from the house strapped to a gurney  and taken to Cedars Sinai Medical Center for a 72 hour lockdown, also known as a ’515o hold’.  A 515o hold is defined as “When any person, as a result of mental disorder, is a danger to others, or to himself or herself, or gravely disabled.”  It would appear Ms. Spears qualifies for a 5150 hold.

I’m really not sure why all of us need to care so much about Britney.  If that sounds insensitive, so be it.  But my list of concerns begin with my wife and children.  That’s followed by my parents, my brother, my in-laws, my wife’s grandparents (mine have passed), my sisters-in-law, my brothers-in-law, my 10 nieces and nephews, assorted aunts and uncles around the country and my very closest friends and their families.  And even if all is in good order with that entire list, I have neither the time nor interest to worry about what’s happening with Britney, Kevin and the kids.  Honestly, I could care less.  Which begs the question, and a fair one at that, why am I writing about her?  And that’s the crux here, isn’t it?

She and her ongoing health and lifestyle instability have become something of a national obsession.  Is obsession too strong a word?  In this case, I don’t think so.  It seems nary a week goes by that we don’t hear about Britney.  Well-documented escapades showing her driving with her 8-month-old son in her arms, several days later stumbling in front of a Manhattan hotel and nearly dropping him, photographs of her without underwear all over the Internet, attacking an SUV with an umbrella, running over a photographer’s foot with her car, going in and out of several rehab centers, shaving her head, her brief partying bond with the equally respectable Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, being charged with hit and run (later avoiding criminal hit and run by paying damages to the woman’s car she hit in a Studio City parking lot) – the list goes on and on.

With every new Spears incident, the parade of news anchors and their requisite psychiatrists as guests weighing in with their opinions is like a New York City subway platform at rush hour.  Pick a network, Britney is being broken down as meticulously as halftime of a college bowl game.  It’s absolutely astounding.

Of all the reports I watched, true hypocrite that I am, CNN’s Randi Kaye offered the one that was my leader in the ridiculous clubhouse; or at least the opening portion of what she filed.  As Kaye strolled down the sidewalk of a busy New York street, she began speaking on Spears .  She then posed the question to us:  Could we cope with the pressure of being photographed virtually every time we were in public?  In essence, do we have any idea how difficult it is to be Britney, a person who lives under constant scrutiny?  Well, I’m going to say no.  But where Britney now finds herself was earned by her, and her alone.

Kaye is a highly respected anchor and correspondent, someone who has an extensive body of work that always has been superlative.  But even if only the premise to a longer report, this was just too much to stomach.  My heart goes out to Spears’ kids; they are the real victims of her travesties.  But as far as Britney goes — forget it.  She’s an adult, a celebrity and a millionaire.  She has support teams to support the support teams.  At the end of the day, if she doesn’t want the help so many have offered her, that’s her choice and she’s the one who has to deal with it.  That we are supposed to care about it borders on laughable.

Let’s be honest here, ours is a society that often borders on being Roman Empire-like.  As soon as someone in a position of authority, someone with power or someone firmly entrenched in the public eye gets in trouble, we are like the common citizens of Rome sitting in the Coliseum watching the gladiators, hungering for blood.  We’re blood-thirsty, in a sense, to see those that have more than us get taken down a notch, or 1o.

This outpouring of professionals on television, grabbing one “15 minutes” after another and telling us why Britney is the way she is, what she can do to get better, whether or not she actually will get better is off-the-charts madness.  Is it that she’s a diversion for us; her problems make us all feel better about ourselves?  Or is it really news?  There have been many celebrities who have had their own personal demons exposed for all to see but I can think of no one, with the possible exception of the aforementioned Lindsay Lohan, who seems to move legitimate news to the side with more efficiency than Britney Spears.

It’s truly a shame to see anyone go through the kinds of things we’ve seen play out with Britney Spears.  However, there are men, women and children in this country that aren’t celebrities, aren’t attention hounds and aren’t millionaires who deal with far more significant obstacles and setbacks than Spears will ever face.  That she is a celebrity makes her no more worthy of coverage and no more remarkable than anyone else.  What I find mind-boggling is that so many people are drawn into her troubles as if they have a personal connection to her; as if somehow, her welfare will have an impact on their own life . . .

Or is it simply that we have become a society more excited by reality television and in the case of Britney Spears, perhaps she’s just a little more “entertaining” than Survivor.

britney spears photo, courtesy associated press

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