Who really IS to blame?

People ask me all the time if I want to go into politics when I'm older because I am now in the student government. The truth is, I really don't. The way I regard American politics is pretty negative. It's a dog eat dog world, and that's not something I want to be a part of.

But just to cross-examine my claim that politics are nasty I did some research and came upon an article by Jonah Goldberg from The Baltimore Sun called 'Who's to blame for America's nasty politics? Tom Brokaw.' In this article, the author blames a news anchor for the "terrible tone in American politics."

This changed my mind a bit. I realized that while politics itself might be a bit unfair, it's really the media that plays on the small indiscretions that come about during an election. America is a prime example of a Social Darwinism society where the politicians with the fewest amount of flaws excel and the ones with more than a few flaws fail. For noticing these flaws, we can thank the media. It is up to news anchors like Tom Brokaw to take a normal flaw and blow it up. Once he has blown it up, it is available to other news stations and other news castors to take it and run.

To be fair, the media is sometimes used as a medium through which political candidates send videos and pictures that demean their opponents. In this case, the actual politics are nasty. The media, however, is just as much at fault for showing these compromising videos and pictures.

So while I do partially agree with Goldberg, I also think that politics are to blame as well.
What do you think?