Maybe those tweet-happy, trivia-obsessed McMuffins really are letting down the profession and the country, turning Presidential politics into a game show. And since I’m sitting here waiting to find out how the horse race in New Hampshire turns out, rather than doing some research into the historical demonization of African-American political leaders, or whether Mitt Romney’s get-tough approach to China is credible from a game-theoretical perspective, maybe I’m guilty of the same thing. But wait a minute. Over breakfast this morning, I read the front section of the Times, which contains almost four full pages of political coverage, much of it tied to today’s New Hampshire primary. There were reports on how Romney has spent years cultivating local political leaders, on how the campaigns are already blanketing the airwaves in South Carolina, and a particularly interesting story on the relationship between Newt Gingrich and Sheldon Adelson, the Las Vegas casino billionaire and fervent Zionist, who has just donated five million dollars to a Super PAC tied to the Georgian. Sitting down at my desk, I picked up an investigative report from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that I had printed out. It examined the history of seventy-seven businesses that Bain Capital, Mitt Romney’s old firm, invested in between 1984 and 1999, and revealed that more than one in five of them (twenty-two per cent) had filed for bankruptcy. To my eyes, anyway, these were all examples of serious political journalism: well reported, clearly edited, and soberly presented. And today is nothing special.