Some might argue that it began before George Dubya. Apparently the US public’s distrust of politics is placated by believing its fate is in the hands of someone they could feel comfortable having a beer with. I’d say it began in earnest with the cardboard figurehead Ronald Reagan, and continued through the wimp and slick Wimpy. The perceived acuity of the US president has since been diminished ad absurdum to an incoherent, uneducated, illiterate inebriate. The ascension of Barack Obama marks a change meant to refresh voter confidence, but clearly our government’s winning motif is taking a not so distant back seat. Americans need someone with whom to feel superior, if not in the highest office, at least among his foils.
We saw it in Obama’s purported campaign opponents Wrong-way McCain and the sans pareil Sarah the Plain. With Republicans willing to plumb heretofore unfathomable shallows to foist its characters, there appears to be no end of candidates for rodeo clown.
While I’m inclined to think these caricatures are fashioned by the media’s framework, mano a mano performance like Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal make me a believer in the solo tour de force majeure, excuse me, grand malheur. Could Jindal’s rebuttal to President Obama’s congressional address have been any weaker? It’s hard for me to predict that SNL will give us anything other than the Palin treatment, lampooning Jindal’s insipid pitch by reprising it verbatim.
Now you’ve been to a doctor, you’ve watched your lawyer kick ass, you’ve taken the sage advice of accountants, you’ve been impressed by museum docents, grateful to police officers, seen miracles performed by plumbers. I’ve even found myself in the debt of cable installers, and more often then not, public clerks. Are we to then believe that Bobby Jindal and ilk are the best our public offices can offer?
I’m convinced the economic “mess” we find ourselves in, is of the Laurel and Hardy variety. The iridescent definition of “mess” leads us to infer that our predicament-mess, results from a clutter-mess of options. To hear the parade of experts, our financial mess is a chaotic tangle to dumbfound even a string theorist. I think it’s more like a job for CSI. This “mess” is painted to obscure an entirely un-messy crime scene. The common American is in a mess alright, we’re staring at a bare bank vault floor.
The mess may be a clutter of fingerprints and a tangle of wire transfers to Switzerland. Maybe we face a daunting defensive line of corporate lawyers. The press is no helping any, choosing to interview the usual odd-footed pundits, instead of the over hundred economists trying to beat down the door to oppose the various economic stimulus bank heists.