McCain’s adviser had it about right

An important adviser to US presidential hopeful John McCain was reported last week as saying that the U.S. had become a nation of whiners. Naturally, there was a fuss and the guy’s remarks were disowned by McCain. And while that shows how politically inexpedient they were, it doesn’t prove that they were wrong.

If you follow the media and listen to people talking around you, I believe you’ll also come to the conclusion that the most typical sound in our society today isn’t muzak, or TV commercials, or the latest pop blockbuster. It is indeed whining.

We’re talking ourselves into a recession. Not just a ‘mental recession’ but a real one. One that will truly hurt a great many people. Some have already lost their jobs. Some have lost their homes. All this is undoubtedly real. But what got us here has mostly been a failure of intangible things: trust, confidence, willingness to offer credit, belief in the soundness of certain investments. In that sense, we are in a mental recession: a recession primarily caused, not by tangible problems of supply and demand, but by the panicky reactions of thousands of dealers and speculators in the world’s stock markets. Continued

Here’s an interesting thought: is contemporary politics more likely to be swayed by comedians than arguments? Does a vibrant democracy need showbiz pizazz more than sober thought and detailed arguments?

That’s the idea espoused by Ian Buruma in “Send in the clowns” in “Comment is free. . .” from the British newspaper, The Guardian.

Beginning with Beppo Grillo, one of Italy’s most famous comics and most influential political commentators, and Victor Trujillo, better known as Brozo the Clown in Mexico, whose TV program is a prime source of political information, Buruma turns to the US presidential election:

While staid TV pundits ask the usual vapid questions during presidential debates in the United States, candidates know that the really important thing is to get laughs on the comedy shows of David Letterman or Jay Leno. And, for several years, American liberals have looked to Jon Stewart, another comic talent, for critical political commentary.

The point to all this, Buruma claims is that:

In fact, democracy demands a degree of showmanship and pizazz; politicians need to appeal to the mass of voters, and not just to an elite, which can afford to ignore hoi polloi. To be utterly boring, holding forth for hours on end, regardless of entertainment value, is the privilege of autocrats. Only communist rulers could force millions of people to buy their complete works, filled with wooden ideas written in turgid prose.

So, should our politicians brush up their comedy skills? Should President Bush end news conferences with a song-and-dance routine? Should Gordon Brown renounce Prime Minister’s Question Time in favor of fifteen minutes of jokes and pratfalls (and would anyone notice the difference)?

What do you think?

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