politics
The timing for a “State of the Union” address could not have been better for President Barack Obama.
The economy continues to crawl out of the doldrums despite the dark clouds of unemployment and government debt. The Dow rose above 12,000 they day after his speech.
In the prize rings of public disputation, I’m not tagged as a "No más," kind of guy. But like Robert Duran, the Panamanian boxer who probably didn’t actually say those words but really did give up during his 1980 championship fight with Sugar Ray Leonard, I think I’ve had enough.
It’s time to ponder the most memorable moments of President George W. Bush’s two terms.
He offers plenty to chew on. I land on the shoe-tossing incident in Baghdad for my most memorable. I watched over and over the newscast replays of journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi flinging two shoes at the president.
I have worked as a journalist and journalism educator for 28 years. I still report and edit, and consume all kinds of news each day — TV, newspapers, magazines, the Web and in whatever form it gets delivered.
I have been a news consumer since childhood. I grew up in a family and with parents who believed that people need to know what’s going on in the world — the world defined very loosely: our neighborhoods, our cities, our states, the U.S. and all other places.
A student at the College of William and Mary, Matt Beato ran for city council in Williamsburg, Va., in 2008. Certainly younger than “an average” candidate, Matt decided that the local city government could be more effective if it accurately represented all of its constituencies. It turns out Matt didn’t win the election, but he thinks he made a statement for young people in Williamsburg.
Nothing undermines efforts to get people involved in governance more than political pandering by politicians and bureaucrats.
While our communities and our country seem to spiral out of whack, leaders focus on benign issues that get media attention but do little to address community problems.
Lately it seems that community leaders throughout the country think high gas prices, rising unemployment, crime and underachieving public schools can all disappear if we go after kids who wear droopy pants.
Saying something really stupid does not disqualify someone from becoming president. In fact, I think we can safely say that saying myriad stupid things neither disqualifies a candidate for president nor a standing president.
But it clearly begs the question, “How can someone we are being led to believe is so intelligent and so equipped to lead, say something so incredibly stupid?”
For the short-term example, we turn to Hillary Clinton and her now “old news” comments about staying in the race because Barack Obama might get assassinated.
We are no longer Americans; mostly, we’re characterized as liberals or conservatives. Our nation is approaching the divisiveness that was present during the Civil War. It is no wonder that we have a dysfunctional government. Career politicians have adroitly diverted our attention from their poor performance by using a scapegoat, the other political party.
A news story about the approaching Democratic Primary in Kentucky recently caught my eye.
Kentucky operates a “closed” primary, meaning that registered Democrats and Republicans cannot switch parties, called a “crossover.” It also means that someone registered as an “independent” cannot vote. Other states such as Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Oklahoma and Utah follow similar rules. In all, the National Association of Secretaries of States reports that 16 states use closed primaries.
Here are links to sites where you can find more about wealth inequality.
www.inequality.org: A web resource dedicated to the topic of wealth inequality.
Economic Policy Institute
National data from The State of Working America 2006/2007: Compare wages and compensation trends, jobs, unionization, family earnings and income trends, and prices throughout the last 50 years.
