A View From Abroad

A reader writes:

My wife and I arrived home from a two week vacation in Germany. While there I read Lester Brown’s latest, and witnessed much of what he discussed in his book, to wit, $8 per gallon gasoline, enormous dedication to wind power and mass transit, and so on.  My 25 year old son, an early and enthusiastic supporter of Obama, picked us up at the airport.  Hardly asked us about the trip before launching into a ten minute diatribe about Hillary Clinton, the expurgated edition being he hates her guts and will not vote for her should she win the nomination.  (Won’t vote at all he says).  He mentioned the gas tax issue somewhere in that explosion.

The political discourse in this country is just plain stupid.  Obama gets my support in part because he says far less stupid things than the others.  Its not that he’s addressing the key issues of the day (what the hell are we going to do to move from a petroleum based economy to something else without wreaking our economy) in any particularly astute way, but at least he is not on record as supporting completely idiotic positions.  We need leadership in this country desperately.  Why is the press attacking Obama about what his pastor thinks instead of addressing the utter absurdities of McCain and Clinton?   The United States has become a scared, self-centered, and ignorant country.

When you read quotes like this, you have to wonder.