A Few Choice Words

Of Polling and Probing

Imagine that: 90 percent of Americans now think of their economy as “poor” or “not so good.” Nine out of ten. And, says the Post, this opinion has grown rapidly (see graph).

The poll also shows six in ten Americans are against the Iraq war as a way to combat terrorism. Fifty-seven percent think our efforts there have stalled; 56 percent think we should withdraw now.

To see how pathetically weak our media remain at gauging public opinion, the thing on which television feeds, look at how they conducted the Clinton-Obama debate (watch this send-up) the other night (April 16). Yet again, our mandarin hosts Gibson and Stephanopoulos brought up Reverend Wright, patriotism, Clinton’s honesty—the hashed-and-rehashed stuff that most people are totally sick of. ABC received over 17,000 emails responding to the debate, most of them negative.

Our hosts would have done far better asking precisely the questions the poll-takers asked (reported here), trying to find out what the candidates think on the issues that really matter.

Some Americans enjoy getting mired in what they think are significant trivia, waiting for a stumble or a knockout punch, somebody not wearing a flag pin on the lapel. They love to catch the other guy out, air dirty laundry (e.g., the William Ayers connection to Obama) and see Hillary squirm (she didn’t) about sniper fire in Bosnia. Charlie and George simply pandered to this sort of appetite.

The NY Times this morning has an interesting article on how divorcing and angry spouses now blog publicly about their messy situations and attack one another on YouTube. This tendency seems also to be part of our politics. It’s certainly part of our media.

What's This About?

Even as Petraeus and Crocker were unfolding their preposterous argument—We have to wait for condi-tions on the ground to improve, said the general. What those conditions are and to what degree they must improve, he would not say.—the Presi-dent was giving a Medal of Honor to the parents of Navy SEAL Michael Monsoor, who dove on a live grenade and sacrificed his life for his comrades.

He wept and was obviously moved. Mr. Bush is a man of feeling but devoid of empathy. He responds to emotional situations, as we have often seen, but has no real compassion for those beyond his immediate circumstances.

Bush reminds me of a character in a Pirandello play: Like Henry IV, Bush is a victim of his own mad ambition. He weeps for the tragedy of one man yet is unable to respond to the realities of the horrors he created. And he has to stay in character as a madman.

“My art is full of bitter compassion for all those who deceive themselves; but this compassion cannot fail to be followed by the ferocious derision of destiny which condemns man to deception.”

—Luigi Pirandello