The Hollywood Liberal

America?s unhappy birthday.
As the nation celebrated its 232nd birthday, people across America were more worried about how much is “wrong right now.” The AP writes, “The nation’s psyche is battered and bruised, the sense of pessimism palpable.” An example in its report from the Optimist Club in Gilbert, AZ: They use words such as “terrified,” “disgusted” and […]

As the nation celebrated its 232nd birthday, people across America were more worried about how much is “wrong right now.” The AP writes, “The nation’s psyche is battered and bruised, the sense of pessimism palpable.” An example in its report from the Optimist Club in Gilbert, AZ:

They use words such as “terrified,” “disgusted” and “scary” to describe what one calls “this mess” we Americans find ourselves in. … One member’s son is serving his second tour in Iraq. Another speaks of a daughter who’s lost her job in the mortgage industry and a son in construction whose salary was slashed. Still another mentions a friend who can barely afford gas.

Joanne Kontak, 60, an elementary school lunch aid inducted just this day as an Optimist, sums things up like this: “There’s just entirely too much wrong right now.”

Happy birthday, America? This year, we’re not so sure.

A May Washington Post-ABC News poll found that nearly “seven in 10 Americans are worried about maintaining their standard of living,” and a separate ABC poll showed economic anxiety at its “highest level on record since 1981.”

DEA Holding Some Mighty Fine Cards
Searching for a 1909 Ty Cobb baseball card, part of the rare T206 series printed by the Sweet Caporal Cigarettes company? How about a 1938 Goudey card featuring Joe DiMaggio?

Obama’s Candidacy is a Test
“They’re going to try to make you afraid of me,” Barack Obama told the audience at a Jacksonville fundraiser last month. “He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?” Obama was doing here by inference what many of his supporters do more explicitly. Obama’s candidacy, in their view, puts American voters to the test: Are they open-minded enough to vote for a black candidate? Or are they still so overcome by racial prejudice as to reject the first black candidate with a serious chance to win? There are obviously problems with this. In a nation of 303 million, there are surely some people who won’t vote for Obama because he’s black. But there are a lot more Americans who aren’t willing to vote for him for other reasons that have nothing to do with race — because he’s a Democrat, because he’s taken liberal positions on many issues, because (to quote his own words) he’s young and inexperienced. In any case, Obama’s candidacy by itself is not a test of whether Americans are unwilling to vote for a black candidate; to determine that, you would have to take into account whether those unwilling to vote for him would be willing to vote for a different kind of black candidate. And as it happens, there is such a test case. In the fall of 1995, Colin Powell, fresh from a boffo book tour, was (or was widely thought to be) contemplating running for president. There were plenty of polls matching him as the Republican nominee against incumbent Democrat Bill Clinton. And running well: A typical Gallup poll had him leading Clinton 54 to 39 percent.

Supreme Court Slip-Up - Washington Post