Theemis #4

IN TOUCH WITH THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. 1988 - George W. Bush, the first Bush President, was running for reelection. He was running against William Jefferson Clinton and, as usual for a Republican, against the mainstream media. During the campaign he visited a grocer's convention. While at the convention he expressed amazement at the technological advancements taking place in the industry with a specific comment on the ability to scan products at the register so that the price would be entered electronically into the register and did not have to be entered by hand. Despite the fact that the President was a regular visitor to small grocers in Kennebunkport, Maine, and ample evidence to demonstrate that he was well aware of the way that people shopped, the media went after him with a vengeance. In particular Andrew Rosenthal, a writer for the New York Times, not present at the time of the incident, wrote that this was a clear demonstration that the President was out of touch with the American Public. The story, and the implication, became the hot item of the campaign with the suggestion that President Bush, a Texan with Connecticut Yankee roots, was just out of touch with the American people. 22 years later Joe Biden visits a small custard shop in Milwaukee. In response to his question to the manager asking for the price of the custard he purchased the manager told him if you can cut our taxes the custard is free. Biden's response "Don't be a smart ass". How elegant, how in touch with the American Public, how ignored by the main stream media. If this were an isolated incident it could be marked up as just another slip of the tongue from the very slippery tongue of the Vice-President. The fact of the matter, however, is that this is not an isolated incident and is representative not only of the Vice-President's failure to be in touch with the American Public but is representative of the entire administration. From the failure of the Administration to have any concern for the overwhelming opposition of the American people to the outrageously expensive health care bill that we will have to live with and which our children will have to pay for to the opposition of the American people to the out of control spending by this Administration putting us into unsustainable debt to our adversaries in the world to the opposition of the American people to the Administration's failure to act in response to the illegal immigration crisis to the opposition of the Administration to respond to the American people's demand that all possible means, including accepting help from foreign sources, be used to stop the destruction of the Gulf region resulting from the BP oil spill this Administration has been so out of touch with the American people that one might think there is life on Mars and that is where Obama and company reside.
And I ask - where has the media, which chided George Bush over a phony issue having to do with operating grocery scanners, been in reference to its job to keep the public informed and to report the truth. The main stream media apparently has found a nice comfortable place on the planet Mars with the Administration. Here is to Washington coming down to Earth in November and regaining touch with all of us - The American people.