 | The sages of the Washington press corps express surprise at the obvious.
David Broder decries the decades-long trend of "Dumbing Down the Presidency": "As presidents have taken the rhetorical path of least resistance by serving up simplistic sentences to citizens, they have correspondingly offered an easily digestible substantive menu devoid of argument and infused with inspirational platitudes, partisan punch lines and emotional and human-interest appeals." |
Our political system seems incapable of producing long-range answers to big problems or big opportunities.Go figure. If politicians delivered straight-talk and education, per Broder and Thomas, the suckers would only stop paying attention and the patronage seekers would only start to riot.
And those like Friedman who genuinely seek long-range answers to society's big problems should compare the track record of politics against the records of civil society and free enterprise.
Posted by Juvenal at June 29, 2008 02:49 PM | Email ThisThere is an average, but no mean. Yet, the President has to represent 300 million people! They decry Bush's 30 to 40 percent support, but getting even that many people in the same tent is prodigious!
There is also population size. At one point a President represented a few million, then 100 million and now 300 million! How can any one person appeal to so many people at the same time! Even the highest selling CD sells in the few millions.
What we see here is the effect of the "Long Tail" where to succeed you have to gather small groups of like minded people and "weave" them into an electorate. Eventually, a politician becomes someone who stands in opposition to something or someone rather than for something -- because it's easier to get people to fear rather than bringing them together in a positive vision...
That you leftists could nominate a lying empty suit like Oliar proves Broder's thesis beyond any doubt... particularly the "dumbing down" aspect of it.
Posted by: Hinton on June 29, 2008 09:34 PMFor instance "can't drill our way out of it".
If I may quote Godess Coulter "...you can't drink your way out of dehydration or eat your way out of starvation"
The rep. party just never has an educational counter-saying on the ready that will educate quickly. Posted by: PC on June 29, 2008 11:53 PM
Pfft. Why don't you give credit where credit is due? I find it very hard to believe that a strong orator and an expert in Constitutional law is "dumber" than a failure of a president that cannot string words together in a sentence to save his life.
Posted by: demo kid on June 30, 2008 02:07 AMIf a highly "educated" empty suit spewing mindless and meaningless cliches about "hope" and "change" is your idea of a presidential candidate, so be it. I would much rather have a strong leader with executive experience and common sense, surrounded by seasoned and capable advisors. Unfortunately, I don't see one of those on the ballot this year.
Posted by: Saltherring on June 30, 2008 06:11 AM"BINGO"
What has obama done? Other than pick radicals for close friends.
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on June 30, 2008 09:50 AMPosted by: PC on June 30, 2008 03:16 PM
He was an associate at a law firm, and a community organizer for nonprofits, moron. Compare that to a fellow who has had EVERYTHING delivered to him on a silver platter. Without his dad the Admiral and his wife the beer heiress, he'd be nothing.
Funny how conservatives love to idolize the "self-made man", and not a heck of a lot of them seem to be self-made themselves.
Posted by: demo kid on June 30, 2008 09:02 PMYeah, and my mechanic isn't really a mechanic because he hasn't worked at the Indy 500.
Seriously, though... I'm having a really hard time trying to figure out why conservatives are so eager to tear Obama down in this way, when the current Republican candidate (and the current President, for that matter) would be nothing without their family connections.
Posted by: demo kid on June 30, 2008 09:07 PM