In one newsroom meeting, a junior editor looked at me with disgust and said, “You mean you would post something online just because you think people would want to read it?”

My snotty reply was, “You bet your sweet ass, John! How’s your Sunday circulation going?”

To me, his question was a perfect example of the monopolistic arrogance of print media, where I had spent decades happily working. 

I’ve likened those newsroom days to a pharmacy where licensed specialists reviewed the day’s news and decided the dosage of which stories at what length to prescribe for readers the next morning. Subscribers obediently lined up at the counter and took their news medicine, whether they liked it or not. 

Now, thanks to the Internet and the keen American business interest in making money, thousands of alternative purveyors of news are assembled on the internet outside that traditional news pharmacy. They’re offering an immense array of news and stories to suit the tastes of every imaginable kind of news consumer.

Much of it is free. And some of it is true.

News managers can now monitor what online product is attracting reader clicks in real time. Since advertising income is based on reader volume, it’s safe to surmise they will produce more stories that attract a large number of clicks.

The idea is, to paraphrase “Field of Dreams”: If you post it, they will come. I once suggested to attract more clicks, we put the word “Boobs” in every headline. I was being facetious. Although now that I think about that….

The result is every day, millions of online news consumers are getting what they want, tons of it in an endless electronic stream crafted, as capitalism dictates, to appeal to every conceivable audience of interests, not all of them healthy.

The important question then becomes, Is what they’re getting good for them individually and collectively as a voting mass that chooses the elected leadership to guide our precious – and surprisingly fragile — democracy through intensely perilous times for a free society?

Authoritarian regimes – China, Russia, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea – seem to have little trouble surviving in this world. Nothing that some public executions can’t handle.

But self-governing free societies like ours are another species. Just as the Internet now requires consumers to make their own judgments about what news sources to patronize among a multitude. 

So, too, do democratic elections require self-responsibility to choose wisely the candidate who gets a vote based on actual thought and judgment and not reflexively on colorful symbols or nice words like “Joy.” For me, that word has been forever sullied by that misnamed scold on “The View.”

Perhaps you, too, have noticed that these modern entertainment campaigns contain virtually zero discussions about such important issues as Mideast policy, support for embattled allies, national security, and military preparedness. Too boring.

I don’t claim to know if getting what we want is good for America in the long term. I know that, despite my mother’s urgings, I wanted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in my lunchbox every single day for the first eight years of school. And I survived. So far.

However, I do know the same culture of entertainment-first did not work out well for ancient Rome and has now infested our politics the same way. 

Homecoming king and queen need no substance to be elected. Popularity and happy vibes will do. Commander in chief should require considerably more. 

Kamala Harris is going the homecoming queen route. Politicians like her forget what they should be doing, providing leadership and details. They don’t say much about what they might do in office to avoid discouraging any votes. She says hardly anything specific to camouflage her record of extreme leftist views.

Here is why you won't likely be seeing many one-on-one interviews with Harris.

Here is Harris trying to talk about Space exploration without knowing anything about it.

Here is Harris not answering the question on what she would do to fight inflation:

Let's start with this: Prices have gone up, and families and individuals are dealing with the realities of — that bread costs more, that gas costs more. And we have to understand what that means. That's about the cost of living going up. That's about having to stress and stretch limited resources. That's about a source of stress for families that is not only economic but is on a daily level something that is a heavy weight to carry.

But the vice president wanted Americans to think they heard her outlining inflation policies. So, she ad-libbed additional words:

That is something that we take very seriously, very seriously. And we know from the history of this issue in the United States that when you see these prices go up, it has a direct impact on the quality of life for all people in our country. So it's a big issue, and we take it seriously, and it is a priority, therefore.

Harris has little experience and a political persona – her historical possibility as a woman, multi-racial – that benefited Barack Obama. Not his party, which got shellacked in his first midterms and has yet to fully recover at the state level.

With waving hands and a grating laugh, Harris tries to exude jolly vibes and talks vaguely about change. Wait! Change? She’s been the key No. 2 to an awful No. 1 for the past 32,016 hours. That's 1,334 days.

Change means someone else, not a vice president who so enthusiastically covered up for so long Joe Biden’s decayed mental and physical state. But collaborative media remain arrogant. They’re unwilling to note that fact because – tah dah! – they covered it up, too.

May I suggest you shift your media patronage elsewhere? It is your only power. And thank you for your VIP subscription support here.

Harris has a long trail of disastrous, leftist policies she would also like you to forget. Bailing out criminal rioters. Supporting Biden policies across the board. The assassination of our hard-won energy independence. 

Explaining nine percent Bidenflation with both hands by cheerily noting, “Prices have gone up.” As if she's gone grocery shopping in recent memory. Opposing fracking. Agreeing that Biden’s lethal Afghan exit was, as he called it, “an extraordinary success.” 

On some of these points, like fracking, she’s sent an unidentified aide out to tell reporters that’s not her anymore. Is that a sufficient vibe to earn your vote?

Like Biden, Harris ignored the invitation from dead soldiers’ families to honor their memory at the Arlington graves. This seems characteristic of the Democrat Party. Harris skipped the dignified return of their bodies. Biden kept checking his watch. And when the first U.S. general in decades died in combat, Obama skipped the burial for golf.

Trump found the time to join the families.

Oh, and Harris “fixing” the porous southern border by overseeing the uncontrolled entrance of more than 10 million illegal immigrants from many countries and shady backgrounds and, now, maneuvering to let those non-citizens vote, presumably with gratitude.

Once again, Democrats are counting on Trump antipathy to carry them to victory. That may be a dangerous assumption. Have you seen the private video of the separate 9/11 arrivals at a Pennsylvania volunteer firehouse of Harris and Biden and then Trump? Quite telling.

Voting against a presidential candidate is dangerous because the alternative candidate gets little scrutiny. I did it once and regret it to this day. 

Look what we got from that in 2020 when Americans ignored the warning signs of Biden’s anger, mental stumbles, and basement “campaign.” Or 1976 with Jimmy Carter because Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon.

Media is now touting Harris’ debate “success.” I’ve never been a big fan of presidential debates because they test nothing that has anything to do with being an effective commander in chief with a skilled staff. “Mr. President, Putin says he’s going to invade Ukraine. What would you do.” C’mon.

Debates are about elevating the profile of TV anchors playing gotcha. 

Remember now, the May debate genesis came in Biden’s own heavily edited video challenge — “Make my day, pal!”  

That was no “debate” on June 27. It was a painful, nationally-televised exposure of elder abuse, a mentally lost, sad old man, who was no mind giant to begin with. His family and aides, eager to prolong their power and revenues, put him out there in hopes of duping Americans to prolong their grift.  

Instead, Harris got one more shot at failing upwards. And that left us now, in effect, with no sentient president for four long, scary months while his vice president and her ebullient proposed vice president do joyful photo ops in select states with crucial electoral votes.  

To show the world President Joe Biden remains vibrant and active, later this week he will host a summit of the so-called Quad Alliance, leaders of Japan, India, and Australia.

Usually, such lavish global gatherings are staged in major cities or resorts to show them off to world leaders and media. Joe Biden decided instead that he wanted to show off his hometown, Wilmington, Delaware (Pop. 70,000). 

Who cares if that’s of interest to guests?

Of course, this will also keep the 81-year-old shuffler close to the cloistered secrecy of his private home and beach, where he’s spent almost 40 percent of his term doing things no one knows about and meeting people who are not recorded.

It will be, well, entertaining to see how the large political, security, and media entourages of four major-country allies adjust to sleepy Wilmington, where Biden’s father sold used cars. 

On hand in Wilmington (“In the Middle of It All”) will be the prime ministers of Australia (Anthony Albanese), India (Narendra Modi), and Japan (Fumio Kishida). All key allies in the upcoming strategic struggle with China.

What a thrill these men have in store in one of America's least important states!

Biden might show off the Charcoal Pit diner. He likes its ice cream.

For the traditional summit-group photo, they’ll probably avoid the Midway Muffler Shop, which does handle foreign cars. Probably better to pose in front of the Amtrak station, which – oh, look! — is named for Joseph R. Biden after he helped arrange $37.7 million for remodeling.

You may remember Joe Biden’s vice-presidential entourage of family, aides, and security once dropped nearly $600,000 for a single night in a Paris hotel. And another half-million for a night in London. (Don’t worry, Biden didn’t have to pay that much. Taxpayers did.)

If the three foreign leaders prefer a fancy hotel, it’s a 35-minute drive to Philadelphia from Wilmington. Otherwise, the local Super 8 has rooms for $67 (plus tax) with free WiFi and cold breakfasts.