The title is from a comment made on Larry King last evening. Both he and his guest has been watching the John Adams miniseries on HBO when the guest said, "How did we get from John Adams to George Bush? It must be back-wards evolution!"
It surely has all of the earmarks of that, but the larger question is this: what does it say about the ken of the electorate when they twice elect a George W. Bush? There are a lot of nincompoops like Bush to choose from, but only a handful of John Adams.
The American electorate has grown more careless in direct proportion to its ignorance of governance and our American history. Rather than studying the issues and the leadership characteristics of a politician, the image and the sound bite trumps everything. Why not? After all, advertising agents are a well-paid group of skillful charlatans who sell thousands of products to our citizens each day. We've allowed these hucksters into our living rooms about every 10 minutes, often paying more attention to the slick commercial than the program.
Critical thinking skills have been dumbed-down in direct proportion to the watering-down of the news. Imagine the vast difference in the 'news' in the John Adams era compared with today: people hungered for the news, the truth, the ebb and flow of governance in the new nation. Today we have to question its accuracy and filter out the propaganda therein. Or, not knowing the difference, we accept the whole package as truth.
As obesity is attacking American bodies, so too is the fat affecting our brains. Lazy bodies, lazy brains. Just the recipe for an 8-year term of a man named Bush.
