Are we better off?

On the Sunday talk show circuit this past weekend, the question all the pundits were asking Democrats was "are we better off than we were four years ago?" (Maddow Blog). While this seems like a good question on the surface, it really is absurd. Of course we are! Should we forget that the economy was floundering, we were losing jobs every month, mortgages were foreclosing at record pace and economic job growth was negative? Did the media? A series of interesting questions emerge as a result of such a silly question: 

1. Has the corporate media decided to play along with the Republican strategy of being completely ahistorical, in the hopes the American public's historical ADD will allow the constant rewriting of history?

2. Does the media just assume the average American is too stupid to actually recognize the absurdity of the question?

3. Has the fourth estate been taking over by a collective a talking monkey robots who have no ability to concoct an original thought and thus can only ask the most obvious questions from past elections?
 
4. Were the pundits throwing a softball to the democrats, which they flubbed badly?

While number three seems the most likely to me, one does also wonder why all the major news stations felt compelled to ask the same question. Sure it would normally be "the" question for a sitting President. But in this case, it seems absurdly out of touch with reality. Has Obama done a good job? Are we now on the right track? Are our future economic prospects good? These seem like reasonable questions. I understand that the question is an important one, and the obvious one to ask, but again it seems to reiterate the fact that we rely predominantly on talking heads who ...

a. Seem more interested in hype and spectacle than actually sharing the facts or making a coherent argument.
b. Don't believe fact checking is part of their job.
c. Often reiterate GOP talking points without even considering their role in the propaganda machine (and dems too, occasionally)
d. Are essentially useless to democracy today, actually working against it at every turn.