Letters to the Editor
-
Learning to be a natural
"I don't know enough about Obama, but I do know that one is either a 'natural' or one is not - you can't learn it, or become one through practice...the phrase carries its own definition."
It was immediately obvious to me that this headline "How Obama learned to be a natural" was meant ironically. The same way one might say "In politics, sincerity is everything - once you can fake that, you have it made". Is no one capable of reading with subtlety anymore? As for polititians being smug and arrogant, didn't one of Shaw's characters say "you know nothing and think you know everything; you are obviously destined for a career in politics". What else is new? I take it for granted that a politician is self-aggrandizing and power-mad. My only concern is for the policies he/she espouses, and whether he/she can actually promote them and implement them. Where does Obama stand on war, on universal health care, on reigning in the military industrial oligarchy, on climate change and peak oil? Who pulls his strings? What will he do to reduce wealth disparity in this country? As for Hillary, how could anyone vote for someone who voted in favor of the Iraq war - a war that may even exceed Vietnam in stupidity and waste? But to criticize Obama for faking being "natural" is to fall into the error of hopeless naivity, and to lose all claim on being taken seriously.