George W. Bush was re-elected after having run on a coherent, plainly stated platform, consistent with his past performance and rhetoric. had sKerry won election, we would be faced with a presidency administered by someone whose platform was, in the most charitable light, vague and inconsistent with his past performance and rhetoric in all regards except for it’s inconsistency and sub-text of blaming America first.
And that is the true American political divide that reflects a cultural sickness that may yet be the death of our society: the divide between those to whom only the real meat matters and those to whom nothing about the purported steak matters except the sizzle. Subtance versus spin. Reality versus myth.
Now, that’s a divide that cannot be healthy if a substantial portion of the population (48% or so?) is dominated by image as opposed to the real thing.