Herbert: The Mask Slips

[fencesitter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/11/opinion/11herbert.html?ref=opinion

Bob Herbert, NYT, Oct.11.

The lesson for Americans suffused with anxiety and dread over the crackup of the financial markets is that the way you vote matters, that there are real-world consequences when you go into a voting booth and cast that ballot.
For the nitwits who vote for the man or woman they’d most like to have over for dinner, or hang out at a barbecue with, I suggest you take a look at how well your 401(k) is doing, or how easy it will be to meet the mortgage this month, or whether the college fund you’ve been trying to build for your kids is as robust as you’d like it to be.

Voters in the George W. Bush era gave the Republican Party nearly complete control of the federal government. Now the financial markets are in turmoil, top government and corporate leaders are on the verge of panic and scholars are dusting off treatises that analyzed the causes of the Great Depression.

Mr. Bush was never viewed as a policy or intellectual heavyweight. But he seemed like a nicer guy to a lot of voters than Al Gore.

It’s not just the economy. While the United States has been fighting a useless and irresponsible war in Iraq, Afghanistan — the home base of the terrorists who struck us on 9/11 — has been allowed to fall into a state of chaos. Osama bin Laden is still at large. New Orleans is still on its knees. And so on.

Voting has consequences.
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More!

[speedoo]

1. Thank you, Mr. Herbert. nt

[druidity33]

2. i'll kick it. nt

[yurbud]

3. he's great. we should all pitch in and buy him some eyebrows though.

Maybe he lost them in the war or something.

[psychmommy]

4. i think it may be an age thing. i am losing my

once very thick and dark eyebrows. actually i am losing my arm and leg hair also. my head hair is ok though.
oh k & r this thread.

[democracy1st]

5. K & R

[Kaleko]

6. Kicking to the top

[Skittles]

7. some of us saw through the mask

we were NEVER FOOLED