Daddy, make a picture

Words of wisdom from Paul Krugman.

Mr. Kerry proposes spending $650 billion extending health insurance to lower- and middle-income families. Whether you approve or not, you can’t say he hasn’t addressed the issue. Why hasn’t this voter heard about it?

I was thinking about this last night after watching the speaches. All the talking heads on MSNBCBNCNNFaux could talk about was whether or not Kerry ‘rushed’ through the speach. No discussions of specifics. Nothing about any of the ideas he touched on. Nada.

Is it any wonder that otherwise well educated and informed people can honestly say they haven’t heard ’specifics’ from the candidates? I suppose one could grab these folks by the ears and shout ‘DOUBLE U DOUBLE U DOUBLE U DOT JOHN KERRY DOT COM’ but isn’t it the job of the media to at least … inform?

I’m cautiously optimistic. I was at the 1992 convention in New York. In fact I was twenty feet away from Bubbah when he gave his ‘Man from Hope’ speech. There was still the stench of defensiveness in the air back then. We were sticking our necks out just a bit and hoping the GOP didn’t bite our heads off.

There wasn’t any of that in Boston, at least from what I could see on TV. It’s almost as if we rolled the clock back to 1960. Chicago didn’t happen. Viet Nam didn’t happen. The Kennedys didn’t happen. 1972 didn’t happen.

We have our stride back.

And that’s a good thing.