Look at DU's Greatest Page ..... wow .......

[Stinky The Clown]

I haven't looked at the Greatest Page in a few days ...... maybe a week.

All the highest rated threads are clearly expressing various levels of displeasure with Obama. The one thread that was not had nothing to do with him. The same pattern holds true as one reads down the page.

By the way, reading down the page takes a lot longer than it used to as lots more threads are being voted upon these days.

But back to the point. There is a great deal of anger, disappointment, disillusion, disgust, regret in the air. Some of it, for some people, is over one specific set of issues (health care, gay rights, climate, etc.). Some of it is far broader. The centrism. The triangulation.

People are venting. Or boiling over. We read about concepts such as "capitulation" and "abandonment". Some vent in long, well thought essays. Others in short rants.

This results in the inevitable schism within the community. Schisms always existed, to be sure. Primary season usually is the height of it. But no more. The schisms developed during the primaries have become full fledged rifts. Tectonic separations. The mere schisms seem inexorably moving toward polarization. Binary steadfastness. Black and White-ism. Love/Hate.

DU, it is often said, is not like the real world. It is a community of opinionated, reasonably well informed, surely very aware, people who follow politics. Many in the same way sports fans follow sports. And I suppose that's true, that we're not indicative of the larger public sentiment.

To a point: we're often kookier, wackier, more wonkish about things.

Setting the radar to a broader view, however, we are probably more representative of the country than many like to think. People "out there" really are upset about health care. People "out there" really want no more war, no matter where it is or who orders it. People "out there" who are affected by it directly or through friends or loved ones really are feeling excluded on matters of gay rights.

In some ways, we've passed the point of repairability. When the country enters into a relationship with a President, it knows it is of some finite duration. The tenor of the term is set early on. It is fair to say that the country's positive feelings for a president diminish over time. Not grow.

Whether any one of us loves, hates, or simply tolerates this (or any for that matter) president matters little. What does matter is the national mood. And it is increasingly sour.

Some of that is actually George Bush's fault. In fact, much of it is. The root cause lies in the last eight years. Or sixteen years. Or thirty two years. No one argues that. No one is unaware that we were left a wreck that was spread across all lanes of the highway. Carnage from guard rail to guard rail.

That's not the issue.

The issue is how it was handled.

And that brings me back to the opening of this thread.

The Greatest Page is reflective of the mood with respect to how things are being handled.

Everyone, I dare say, wants a health care reform bill. The argument is what *kind* of health care reform bill we get. What kind of economic policy we get. What kind of internatinal policy we get. What kind of trade policy, human rights policy, citizens' rights policy, criminal treatment policy, domestic spying policy ......

On all of it, I think, on balance and on average, DU does reflect the larger populace.