Barack Obama and the Age of Blather

Barack Obama’s presidential run seems to be proving one thing and one thing only: how superficial and shallow our politics has become.
The only thing the media focuses upon is Barack Obama’s race and what it entails. The imbecilic sermons of his former pastor Reverend Wright and the reaction of working class whites to his candidacy. The reporters tell us they do that because Obama is the symbol of a new America or that our country is racially divided. That’s a load of bather and the simpletons in the media know it.
The media is focusing on the color of Obama’s skin and trying to incite a racist backlash against him because they don’t want to report on the real issues facing our country. No reporters are writing about the terrible condition of our transportation system, the highways filled with potholes, the bridges falling down, the obsolete railroad system, the airline system overwhelmed with gridlock, the lack of public transportation in most areas. No TV newshounds are questioning the high price of oil or global warming nor are they asking the presidential candidates about these things.
The only response to the energy and transportation crisis from the candidates has been John McCain’s suggestion for a gas tax holiday in the summer. McCain would stop collecting the federal gas tax, this would give motorists a momentary reprieve where the money to repair and maintain our highways will come from once the federal fuel tax is killed, McCain doesn’t say. Hillary has picked up on McCain’s moronic suggestion and added her own idiotic twist. She suggests a windfall profit tax on oil companies to make up for the lost fuel tax revenue, what Hillary doesn’t tell us is how the oil companies will pay the tax. They will raise gas prices to cover the revenues they loose to Hillary’s tax. The consumer at the pump won’t see any difference but Hillary might get a few votes. One thing of course is obvious, John McCain and Hillary Clinton have one thing in common, it’s been a long time since either of them has driven a few miles on our highways or taken a commercial airline flight.
Obama to his credit has denounced the gas tax stupidity but he hasn’t come forward with any constructive alternatives. Where is the talk of mass transit, high speed trains, railroad electrification and oil shale development that this great nation needs? Not coming from the brave visionary Barack Obama. Whether he’s saving these things for the general election or doesn’t know about them I don’t know and don’t care. They are the solution and he will he have to adopt them, just as earlier generations of politicians became ardent supporters of World War II and the Cold War because times demanded it. Of course Hillary or McCain would be forced to adopt these solutions once in office because the times cry out for them.
Obama is no visionary or champion of radical change, indeed his campaign is somewhere to the right of Herbert Hoover’s. Obama’s platform is basically do nothingism, do nothing to offend foreign nations, do nothing on the economic scene lest you upset the free market and do nothing to interfere in anybody’s private life lest it offend them. These are the rules by which a milk toast librarian lives not the principles by which a great nation is governed.
Now, I maybe wrong about Barack Obama he has shown himself to be a decent political operator and to have some common sense about economics. Other supposed political lightweights like Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan have shown themselves to be great leaders and visionaries. Supposed visionaries like Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and Neville Chamberlain have been exposed as fools and frauds by history.
Which is Obama? I don’t know, but I do know one thing he’s better than Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Which isn’t saying much but it is a reason to vote for the man.