Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne’s book Why Americans Hate Politics was published in 1992. In his clear, gentle but firm style, the book spells out how the left-right ideological chasm that sprang up during the 1960s led to an increasingly wider divide between word and deed in how politicians campaigned and their subsequent actions in office. People sensed they were being gulled, and large numbers of them responded by tuning out the political sphere entirely. Unfortunately, the situation continued to deteriorate throughout the double terms of the next two presidents.

I’m a strong supporter of Obama in part because I think he knows how to fight tough but do it in a classy way, something the Democrats haven’t seen in a long time. One of the more interesting battles being waged these days is over control of the American narrative. Ronald Reagan won the last round, but I think Obama and Biden are just getting warmed up. Dionne is on that beat, and it’s worth following.

One of my favorite passages from The Lord of the Rings is an exchange between Legolas and Gimli that takes place as they walk through the streets of Minas Tirith early one morning during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. They meet Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth and exchange news, parting on a gracious note.

“That is a fair lord and a great captain of men,” said Legolas. “If Gondor has such men still in these days of fading, great must have been it glory in the days of its rising.”

“And doubtless the good stone-work is the older and was wrought in the first building,” said Gimli. “It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.”

“Yet seldom do they fail of their seed,” said Legolas. “And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli.”

“And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens, I guess,” said the Dwarf.

“To that the Elves know not the answer,” said Legolas.

For a multicultural society to work, there has to be a commonly shared understanding that there are many paths to the same truths. Read more…

Senator Harry Reid’s recently revealed remarks (from a few years ago) that Barack Obama had a decent shot at the presidency because he was “light-skinned” and could choose whether or not to use a “Negro dialect” in his public utterances should have been no more controversial than an observation that Hillary Clinton is a woman in her early sixties who dials up or down a Southern drawl depending on which constituency she is addressing. Instead, we’ve been treated to a debased spectacle of political correctness run amok. The Republicans are gleefully trying to work both sides of the street on this: tossing out verbal grenades and then sitting back to watch the Democrats scurry around on the defensive about racism.

The realities of human nature, our “winner takes all” political system and the routine brutality of capitalism all converge in the fact that individuals are always at risk of having someone try to capitalize on any perceived vulnerability. No amount of legislation (and no amount of whining about victimization) will ever eradicate this. As the old expression goes, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”