Political Science

1) Is the American public well informed enough to guide the policies of the US government Why or why not

There is an aphorism that states that (democratic) governments are often run by politicians in reality despite the notion that sovereignty resides in the people or citizenry.  Although this is idealistically true, the reality is quite far from it.  Perhaps the only time the public is well informed enough to make things happen in politics is only whenever there are elections, but this appears to be the only extent of that knowledge and involvement. One can easily say that the (American) public may either be lazy or indifferent to get involved in politics.  In answering that question, this is partially correct.  It appears that the public tends to be dependent on their elected officials, especially their congressmen, in representing their interests in the halls of power.  Besides these duly elected officials, public interest or pressure groups seem to also work in behalf of the public as well. As a result (oftentimes), the course the government takes might be quite far from what people expect from their leaders such as tax laws.  Special interest groups are the ones, instead of the general public, that influence the making of laws. The result is tax laws that only benefit these interest groups because they only represent a particular sector of society but not society in general, and while they benefit from their involvement and influence, the others are left out to  suffer.

2) Does the lack of public information about issues pose an especially worrisome problem for the conduct of US foreign policy why

This is true.  If one were to listen to the arguments of those opposed to the governments policies, the public would be more often than not kept in the dark in the things that go on behind closed doors in the State Department, the White House and even Congress and other concerned agencies.  It is only when the events have happened does the public become aware of them one way or the other.  Such is the case of the invasion of Iraq. In the beginning, the American public bought whatever the Bush administration said that gave it the justification to invade Iraq on the pretext that it was part of the war on terrorism, and that there were weapons of  mass destruction (WMD) still unaccounted for which may be used by these terrorists. It was only later that everybody found out that there were no WMDs at all and because of this, repercussions followed on the account that the American public appeared to be deceived, and this had serious consequences in the subsequent elections which saw the domination of the Democrats in Congress and the victory of Barack Obama in the 2008 elections. The political victory of the Democrats was partly the result of the inability or unwillingness of the previous administration to  be honest  to the public from whom it (or any government for that matter) draws support for their policies.

What are some of the consequences of the American medias profit-driven reporting of the news

If there is one possible consequence, that would be the loss of objectivity or impartiality. The role of the media is to inform the public. In the days of Edward Murrow and Walter Kronkite, these men made the news the most reliable source of information or truth to the public, making them the voices that America trusted.  Most, if not some of todays reporters, resort to sensationalism where stories are often exaggerated to get more attention. Naturally, the more attention it gets, the more profits or higher the ratings for the news and media outfit.  One example is the war in Iraq.  The way the media reported it is very much reminiscent of Vietnam where despite military successes, the media depicted it in such a way that it appeared America was losing the war.  What is wrong here is that they capitalize on  bad news  to gain more profit since it draws more attention than  good news.  Corollary to that, they end up serving as the  mouthpiece  of certain cliques who want to further their cause, ranging from big companies to left-wing liberals.  The corresponding consequence to that is that the public is apt to accept what they say because they assume anything reported is the truth, and they are more inclined to believe it than what the government may say (Pringle, 2009).