Lies, Lies, and More Lies

Today, Robert Samuelson touches on something that bothers me a lot about politics in this country. At least in a typical Western parliamentary system, between heckling on the floor of parliament and a weekly question period, there are frequent opportunities for bovine excrement to be called by name. Here? The media doesn't seem to do its job - or want to do its job - preferring to treat any allegation as a "he said, she said" to be resolved by two talking heads (representing the "pro" and "con") and a jabbering news anchor, or to run a sensational rumor apparently to sell additional papers or draw viewers for a later program, rather than spending the five or ten seconds it would take in many of these cases to find and report the truth.

The other day, Larry King was truly scraping bottom with Ann Richards, Al Sharpton, Dennis Prager, and Marc Racicot trading official "talking points" and absurd prevarications, along with pathetic answers to any direct question posed, while Larry played the part of, as Jon Stewart might say, the happy monkey. I just don't know how anybody who is even slightly informed on the issues, given that group of people and that opportunity, would be so seemingly taken in by each side's nonsense, and so unwilling to cry foul when the more absurd falsehoods are presented. And this is now the norm.

Samuelson notes,

While everyone has emphasized the differences between George Bush and John Kerry, what's more revealing are the similarities. Both have avoided some of the nation's most obvious problems: the coming spending explosion to pay baby boomers' retirement benefits (mainly Social Security and Medicare); the relentless advance in health costs that's squeezing wages and other government spending; the rising tide of immigration and the associated social problems; Americans' uncontrolled thirst for insecure foreign oil; and the perils of letting Iran and North Korea go nuclear.

To be sure, the candidates had positions. But these consisted mostly of appealing platitudes that said what people wanted to hear.

Well... yes. And let's not forget George "I cut your taxes" Bush, who refuses to address the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) which will soon claw back most or all of the "middle class tax cut" from about 90% of its beneficiaries, or Kerry who is very much aware of that issue but apparently afraid to make it a campaign issue - after all, current budget and deficit projections anticipate the continued expansion of AMT revenues.

Samuelson opines,

At the root of all these glaring omissions is public opinion. On these issues, pleasant solutions don't exist. ... If the public won't abide honest discussion of clear problems -- and our leaders can't lead opinion -- then the problems simply fester. In this campaign, neither Bush nor Kerry has risen above that dilemma.

That suggests that many of our largest social problems will progressively worsen until they get so bad that we're forced to deal with them. Or they deal harshly with us. This is the true deadlock, and it may be incurable.

Still, I wonder what would happen if an incumbent President, particularly one with a majority in both houses, truly took on the hard issues, rather than making every significant initiative take effect in his second term. What if a President dared to tell the truth and to lead during his first term, rather than treating it as an audition. After all, are we so stupid to think that Bush truly thought that the Israel-Palestine "road map" would be more or less complete in 2005? That the Medicare prescription benefit wasn't put off until 2006 because it is anticipated that many (or most) seniors will find it horribly lacking? That Afghanistan's Parliamentary elections won't take place until 2005 (even as its first Presidential election was moved up to make Bush-friendly headlines)? That although nominal sovereignty was handed over to a new, appointed council of Iraqi's, no election will occur until 2005? Everything difficult goes into the second term.

Well, yes... maybe we are that stupid.

(I single out Bush not because this is unique, but because he is the incumbent, and likes to pretend that he is a leader. By way of Democratic example, the roots of Clinton's failure in his Israel-Palestine peace efforts lie largely in his failure to address the hard issues, such as borders, settlements, and refugees, until his last six months in office.)