Platitudes for pundits

Today, all of us bloggers should listen to John Tierney.

In his column in the NY Times (behind subscription wall), Tierney highlights Guy Goma, the poor guy who went to BBC to interview for a computer job, was mistaken for a pundit, put on camera, and interviewed live for about fifteen minutes about the outcome of an intellectual property suit involving Apple Computer and the music industry.

As Tierney relates, Goma handled the questions as well as most talking heads on TV:

It's a master class demonstrating the first principle of talking heads: Don't let the facts get in the way of an opinion. The less you know, the more forceful you can be. You're not distracted. You take in the big picture.

As Goma realized, no matter what business is being discussed, you can slither out of pesky questions by announcing that the industry has been transformed by the Internet. Or, if you prefer, you can pooh-pooh all the talk about the Internet revolution and say it's still the same old business of giving the customers a good product at a fair price. Either opinion is fine — you just have to pick one and stick with it.

So, with that, I'll opine that the only poll that counts is the one in November and that when all is said and done at the end of the day, the future lies ahead.