Many Americans believe that truth is in short supply among public officials. How many times have you heard somebody say, “They’re all liars,” or, “I wish we had a straight-talking politician”? What’s interesting is that we now have a politician who “tells it like it is,” and he’s being criticized for his truthfulness.
About a week ago at a gathering in San Francisco, Sen. Barack Obama displayed some of that yearned-for straight talk when he described the bitterness of small-town American voters: “It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter; they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Sen. Obama’s comments are right on point. As working-class Americans see their jobs--indeed, their very lives--going down the drain, it’s understandable that in many instances they turn inward. Instead of voting in their best economic interests, they, in their justifiable anger, turn to fear-mongering candidates, demagogues who offer attractive, simplistic (but wrong) “solutions” that blame minorities, immigrants and persons of other (or no) faith traditions for their economic woes.
Because he confronted a problem, used his brain to analyze it, and then told the truth about it, Sen. Obama is being attacked as an “elitist.” These attacks exemplify America’s alarming love affair with mediocrity, a widespread attitude that glorifies dumb and vilifies smart. How else can one explain the election to the presidency, not once, but twice, of a semi-literate simpleton like George W. Bush?
Monday, April 14, 2008
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