If you don’t think that, as a nation, we’re having two totally different conversations as we talk about issues in this election season, compare and contrast these videos:
And now the Fox “remix”:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owA2geM8OGg[/youtube]
Read what Joe himself thinks to get the full flavor of the problem, but here’s a brief excerpt which tells you a lot about what’s wrong with voters like Joe:
PM: Now did Obama tell you that you would receive some sort of tax cut?
JW: He talked about suspending capital gains to a certain amount… To be honest with you, I don’t want to say I tuned him out – because as he started, he pretty much regurgitated what he said in his debate, first one, second one, and a lot of his rallies. What he said to me was pretty much word for word what he’s been saying for the last couple months. So when he started down that path, it’s like, ”Okay, I’ve already heard this, Obama, give me something different.”
PM: There was nothing new in his answer?
JW: No, there was nothing new. You know, I didn’t appreciate that, actually.
PM: There’s a clip of you that’s been shown on television, and it’s all over the Internet on YouTube as well. It’s a very short clip. Do you think it accurately portrays the exchange that you had with Sen. Obama? Obviously there was more to it.
JW: I haven’t seen too much of it to be honest with you – I’ve been working yesterday and today, and the evenings spent with my boy or with my family. So I haven’t spent too much time looking at it. I did notice – I wish the newspaper people, talk shows, I wish they would start off with the very beginning: “Do you believe the American dream?” That was essentially what it came down to for me – was do you believe in the American Dream, you’re not going to punish people for going for it?
PM: To you, what exactly is the American Dream? Can you explain that?
JW: Me personally?
PM: Yeah, you personally.
JW: Me personally, my American Dream was to have a house, a dog, a couple rifles, a bass boat. I believe in living life easy and simple. I don’t have grand designs. I don’t want much. I just wanna be able to take care of my family and do things with them outdoors and that’s about it, really. I don’t have a “grand scheme” thing. My American Dream is just more personal to me as far as working, making a good living and being able to provide for my family, college for my son. Things like that – simple things in life, that’s really what it comes down to for me. That’s my dream.
PM: Do you think your question surprised Obama, caught him off guard at all?
JW: Well that was actually my intent. Most people, you ask them “do you believe in the American Dream?” Nine times out of ten they’ll sit there and go, “Yeah, of course!” That’s where he messed up, because as soon as I asked him that, his answer shows that he doesn’t believe in the American Dream. You know, like the question you asked before – he pretty much contradicted himself. “I don’t want to punish you but – “ Well, you’re going to anyways.
“Do you believe in the American dream?” is the question that is most important to Joe this election year. And, sadly, he thinks it’s a trick question that caught Obama off-guard.
There’s a saying in American Politics — “You campaign in poetry, but you govern in prose.” I think that this gives us too much credit. To reach a growing number of American voters, our leaders have abandoned poetry and prose altogether because, when it comes to issues and policy, many Americans are functionally illiterate.
No — These days we campaign in cartoonish simplifications, clichés, and talking points and we govern . . . as little as we can get away with before the next campaign begins. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream. So did our Founding Fathers. “Dreams” to them meant putting their ideals into practice, forming a nation where we all had a chance to pursue excellence and happiness. These weren’t personal dreams. They were the ideals that we strove for. Life and death stuff. Stuff worth fighting, sacrificing, and sometimes dying for. You know — all of that great “bumper sticker” stuff that, when you talk about actually turning it into a reality, the people at Fox characterize as fruity and Socialistic. To them the American Dream is “I’ve got mine…good luck getting yours!”
Given that, what could be more apropos than to have a plumber be our “Everyman” in the final Presidential debate of 2008. He’s hip-deep in shit all day long but, give him a house, a dog, a couple rifles, and a bass boat and he’s happy to pull the lever for you on the first Tuesday in November.
I’ve got news for you Joe.
That’s not the American Dream you have — it’s a shopping list.
