This week, the 2012 election season finally got to pig out on an empty-calorie feeding frenzy, in which everyone in the media pretended to have some sort of lofty conversation about the role of private equity in society while actually reminding everyone else that political elites are completely removed from the real-life stakes of the lives of normal Americans. It made for a great show, though! Pundits screwed on their super-serious faces and reporters faked thoughtfulness and everyone who was pretending to know something about the subject did a fine job of acting like they were doing something interesting. But let's face it: The only reason anyone was talking about private equity was because somewhere, some surrogate had gone "off message," and suddenly there was catnip everywhere!