A Plea for political understanding

I posted this on Reddit, but I thought it an important insight into my feelings on politics to remember.

I think I know why people (like me) are apathetic or ignorant of current political events. With your help, I'd like to change that.

It's not like I'm proud of not being knowledgeable of the political landscape, but what keeps me so distant from that realm is the sheer enormity of it all. This feeling culminates during election season but is prevalent constantly, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this sentiment.

The problem is the feeling that I can never know enough. The second I feel like I understand an issue and a proper course of action, someone smacks me down with some revelation to make me consider the other side. I always feel like I'm a single fact away from being completely mistaken. There's just something so intimidating about bombastic, dogmatic defenders of a viewpoint that I just can't penetrate.

I mean, I've got opinions on most of the major issues, but when it comes to arguing them, I feel there's an insurmountable amount of knowledge and history to wade through. Documents, bills, laws, transactions between companies and politicians, track records, previous positions... Is it all relevant? All Congressmen/women aren't corrupt, terrible people, surely? What comes to mind are commercials for candidates; what mud being slung is important and true? How do I know?

What's worse is that I'm disinclined to try to learn because I'm accused of listening to the "liberal mass media", but far from turning to Fox News, where else should I go? I understand taking things with a grain of salt, but I'm accused of listening to [direction]-leaning ideologues at every turn.

Should I take politicians at their word? I listen to a speech Obama gives, thinking I'm being up on current events, but someone denounces it all as lies. How can I tell the quacks from the experts? I tried to analyze and compare Obama and Palin's political records during the election and was presented with a seemingly infinite number of previously unknown details of varying significance. At a certain point it really has to come down to facts, but I have so much trouble deciphering them.

I'd really appreciate some help, because I'd like to be a good, informed citizen. Curt replies about one side being stupid won't help, though, so if you could keep the pun threads after the informative posts, that'd be great.