The Good Old Days

Some thoughts occurred to me while I was listening to Denis McDonough speak tonight about candidate debates in this country (YPFP sessions are off the record, but seeing as the topic of the discussion is posted on the front page, I don't think I've given anything away):

We bemoan the disappearance of the 'good old days' in politics - a time when politicians could be more candid and less partisan (forgetting, of course, the partisanship and witchhunts of the McCarthy era). The primary culprit seems to be the media - blamed for dumbing down debates to soundbites. Is this necessarily true, however? The 'old days' certainly had their moments (the bipartisanship during the Truman administration detailed in James Chace's excellent biography of Dean Acheson was astounding and makes me entirely wistful), but have those moments passed entirely?

Isn't it patronizing on the part of talking heads to assume that the public doesn't want these poll-tested, prepackaged deals? Why on earth do they assume that average Americans don't care? Its our country too- perhaps even more so, since we are the soldiers and police officers, firefighters, EMTs, teachers, shopkeepers, workers, and everyone else. We are America. Why wouldn't we want to know exactly what and where our leaders plan to drag us in to?

This will become a common theme here, but we have the power and responsibility to ask the tough questions, as do our spokespeople - the media and Congress - and our leaders - again, Congress and the President - have the responsibility to answer to us. Americans generally dislike those who ride on other's coattails. Its time we realized that's what we've been doing, assuming the media will do our job for us. I always feel like this part ends up echoing 'if you build it, they will come', but its true. If nothing else, we've learned that politicians respond to polling. So if we start demanding real answers, and stop accepting prearranged debates, then mightn't they start to give us what we want?

This is in danger of becoming a bit of a rant, so I think I'll stop here, but this is definitely a subject I feel passionately about. Americans are not dumb. We might be insular and isolated, apathetic or agnostic, but generally, present us with a reasonable argument and we'll at least hear you out. Of course we won't necessarily change our minds, but I think most of us are at least willing to consider alternatives. So present us with some! We don't care only if we have nothing worth caring about. Let's collectively agree not to let politics be one of those.