If I were working for the Corporate Media covering politics, my resolutions for the New Year would be this:

10) Having lost the claim to be ‘Mainstream’, I will stop getting my editorial direction from White House press releases, E!, the Heritage Foundation and Rush O’Reilly.

9) I will question how US national security is advanced by supporting the Israeli government’s policies of a 20-to-1 killing ratio against all its enemies. Have Americans died as a result of such unqualified support?

8) I will remember that history didn’t begin with or encompass only the things Doris Kearns Goodwin writes about. Many political choices have historical precedents that can help to judge the wisdom or folly of the latest decisions.

I will, for starters, go back and read ‘Shrub’ by Molly Ivins to see how much of the past 8 years was not only predictable, but predicted by the late, wise Molly, when she wrote it in 1999. I’ll add a little Howard Zinn and the recently departed Studs Terkel for added perspective that’s not driven by Beltway insiders, PR companies, think tanks and corporate flacks.

7) I will repeat 10 times during my morning coffee every day: ‘Political speculation is not journalism, it’s filler.’

6) I will remember that we were asking if the Democratic Party was dead in 2004, and now we’re asking if the GOP is dead. And I’ll remember that pendulums swing constantly.

And while I can predict that the GOP will need another presidential campaign to be fully cognizant of the changes it will need to make, I won’t keep going for the easy answers that regionalism alone provides. After all, the entire South didn’t vote GOP in 2008. Sunbelt migration by Northerners has also shaped the South’s own evolution. There remain divides between urban, suburban and rural agrarian. There remains (though declining) the political influence of religious extremists. There are class divides, culture divides, education divides, gender and racial and even the divide between smug intellectuals and smart undegreed people deserves further exploration.

I will remember that recipes aren’t foolproof and few problems have simple solutions. And I’ll try my best to relate the complexities while assuming my audience has brains.

5) I will remember who called themselves neo-cons and how badly each discredited himself, then call attention to that past anytime I quote any of them.

4) I will remember that political ideology is not just an either/or prospect between liberals and conservatives. I will ask every self-professed conservative what it is they exactly conserve. I will ask liberals what issues they’re most liberal about and whether they’re really describing centrist positions.

Let them demonize each other. My job is to inform my audience not to accept the labels of people pushing an agenda.

3) I will admit any errors I make in my reporting.

2) I will tell my audience if and why a politician is likeable. But I will criticize their policies and proposals if they’re weak, likeable or not.

1) And especially for 2009, I’ll stop assuming any economist can accurately predict how bad the recession will be, how high unemployment will be, and how long the misery will last. I’ll remember that they’re just guessing, too.