Yesterday, the assistant managing editor of MarketWatch wrote a rant about the coverage of Toyota’s acceleration of troubles. (Here it is.) Steve Kerch says it’s way too much hype, and chides his media colleagues to “put the brakes on out-of-whack priorities.”

This was an unwise thing to do, Steve. First, you exposed yourself to instant reader dismissal — you’re an staff editor of a business publication. Could you be inappropriately sympathetic to, ahem, a business? You also used an unheralded fatal accident to make your point — nobody was interested in making a big deal about the crash of a Pontiac. Do you think this cheap journalistic trope will shame journalists?

Really, there’s plenty of journalism to complain about, but the massive coverage of Toyota’s trouble isn’t it. This is a huge story, because it affects millions of car owners, and because Toyota’s Number One, and because it’s a matter of life and death. That’s basic journalism. Hell, it’s basic business journalism.

Besides, it’s not news that news in the TV age is driven by action, not process, nor even bad manners. This is a fact of modern life, Steve. You may not like it, or approve, but there it is. You, and the editor who let you do it, should take a time-out.

David Edelstein, the movie critic on CBS’s Sunday Morning, got it right. If he won, Jeff Bridges would win for his career, not necessarily “Crazy Heart.” Last night’s awards seemed to reflect a certain shift in perspective among Hollywood’s voting elite.

The shiny, new, hottest of the hot actors didn’t win big. The seasoned veterans took the statues home.

If you look for signs, and I do, the 82nd Oscars were a coming of age, with a capital “A”. If the big story line was that Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron used to be married, we had to go back twenty-plus years to put it together. Both are sixty-ish and earned their accolades not only with talent, but actual years.

And Sandra. What can I say? She’s no Meryl, but she’s earned her Oscar with solid performances.

Maybe we’re getting comfortable with our age after all. Am I wrong?

No getting away from it, The Oscars is bigger than St. Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and many other holidays and saints. Admit it, movies are the preeminent artform.

That’s not fair to the novel or the symphony, of course, but for sheer impact on human society, no other form can touch the movies. TV would be all talking heads without the magic of montage, a technique only filmmakers could have invented. Every other artform has adopted the creation of psychic experiences that began with movies.

So, I’ll enjoy tonight, as a writer, as a TV watcher, as a dreamer.

After you have a look at “Poles Apart,” the argument Bill, my business partner, and I are having about bipartisanship and healthcare reform, come back here and click over to the New York Times and Paul Krugman’s column. Here’s the link. I’m trying to keep an open mind, but the polarized people around me are making it hard.

If the Republicans and Democrats could have gotten together on even a Step One healthcare reform bill, I think reasonable people would have approved — I almost wrote “would have been happy,” but I realize that’s a naive idea. The fact is, the Republicans sort-of participated in this long process — all the while denying they were doing so and reserving the option of trashing the process and its product.

While Congressional Democrats may have had their fingers crossed while appearing to collaborate with Republicans on a bill, I believe President Obama has bent over backwards to try to generate a bipartisan process. I think reasonable people would have to acknowledge this. I don’t expect unreasonable partisans to agree. So be it.

Whatever happens next in Congress, the ridiculous political battle over whether to fix a clearly broken healthcare system will no doubt continue. Standing where I do, independent and desperate to clean up our broken political system, I’m ready to support the Healthcare Reform Act of 2010 in its reconciled form. And I’m ready to campaign and vote for any candidate who promises to be independent from boneheaded, ideological Democrat or Republican partisanship.

We woke up from the American Dream. It’s sinking in, I think. I just had a little aha, at least. For a long time, we’ve been making money producing stuff we want. As opposed to stuff we need.

The rest of our money-making has revolved around conceptual investing — making money gambling. There’s been no shortage of new money-stunt ideas.

Interestingly, aside from the money circus, whose tent collapse is smothering us, the sexiest new-product ideas are popping up in the Computer-Internet marketplace. I think most of these ideas are well beyond stuff we need — how many new jobs will Steve Jobs produce with his hand-held plastic screen? How much are we producing Twitter-ing among ourselves?

We need new ideas. The ideas we’re not getting, or at least not hearing about, are ideas that would revolutionize the delivery of basic needs, and create new jobs. How shall we do this?

When you’re an optimist, you get disappointed a lot. Watching this process — with both sides pointing at each other and saying, If this doesn’t work, it’s on you — I’ve realized I was probably a naif to think these public meetings and arguments could get the Republicans and Democrats together.

On the other hand, I’m not alone — David Brooks of the New York Times saw lots of hopeful signs. I can only hope the parties will read his column today. Does Obama have another meeting in him?

Anyway, I’m not gonna change my stripes after 70 years. I still like being hopeful and positive better than cynicism and snark. I think optimists live longer, in better health.

What’s going on right now is simply great. The President’s summit is a great antidote for all the nasty, unfair rhetoric that plays out daily on cable and, in bites, in the news reports. Watch some of it. And remember this is not “them” talking to each other, this is us. (Below.)

UPDATE: 10:10AM PST — The summit’s on its lunch break. I’ve been surfing around on Twitter and Facebook while watching. You can catch up on your favorite news site, like the Washington Times or the New York Times. The arguments and statements flowed constantly on the social streams. I feel stronger than ever that the people who just toss snarky, partisan comments into the fire are not helping. I’m happy to report I see lots of people calling for common sense and open minds. The White House feed went down — digital media works about two thirds of the time. But I think — I hope — this exercise is working.

UPDATE 1:55PM — The session’s about wrapped up. I sincerely hope we’ve moved a few baby steps toward getting Republicans and Democrats moving together toward getting a bill passed. Not starting from scratch. I don’t see why the parties can’t finish up healthcare reform now, working together.

AFTERTHOUGHTS — 5:30PM — I try to suspend cynicism. Looking back at what I wrote earlier, I see my wishful thinking. I don’t think I’m wrong to be an optimist. At the same time, I can’t say I’m satisfied with the President’s meeting. I’ll continue to hope. But somebody on NPR just confirmed that this didn’t look like a legislative negotiation, and she’s seen a lot of them. It looked like what happens when you put a legislative negotiation on TV. Everybody retreats to their talking points. I reserve the right to be an older but wiser optimist. Maybe the President was building a case for passing healthcare reform with Democrat votes only. Not the best outcome, but, under the circumstances, not a tragedy, either.

America offers all of us who live here, and just about everybody who wishes they did, a remarkable, three-dimensional dream. If you’re good at what you do, you can go as far as you want to — it isn’t easy, but America’s commercial culture doesn’t throw up many arbitrary barriers to progress. We celebrate success like noplace else.

Beyond success in America, there is the potential for The Fall. When you’ve achieved success, and especially if it’s public success, America is equally devoted to tracking mistakes and celebrating self-inflicted downfalls. No doubt, other cultures also worship success and celebrity, but nowhere has the marriage of media and marketing so completely institutionalized this phenomenon. (I hasten to add, this is my perception from inside America — we also tend to think we’re the most extremely evolved in the practice of everything human nature is prone to.)

But don’t worry, Tiger, or you, Toyoda-san, or even you, Barack. The third dimension of the American plot line is the comeback. We love that more than anything. Ask Martha.

I watched Tiger Woods face the cameras and his friends, live. This is as good a first report as any, from the L.A. Times.

Depending on your empathy level, this was somewhere between uncomfortable and excruciating to watch. My usual satirical edge was ground right off. I don’t have much respect for the media people who’re zinging Tiger for trying to control this situation. It’s reasonable for him to try. It’s unreasonable for him to expect to succeed. It’s just as self-serving for the media mouths to taunt him for it.

Yes, I made sure I was watching in “real time” as he made his public apologies. I’m interested in what’s going on. I’m willing to respect his plea for privacy now.

Tiger talked about his wife, by name, a lot, this morning. He was talking mostly to her, saying in a variety of ways, she and the kids are his first priority now. He convinced me.