The entire premise of Barack Obama’s candidacy is built upon the opposite assumption — that Americans are not only able, but eager, to participate in a more elevated and reasoned political discourse, one that moves beyond the boisterous, screeching, simple-minded, ugly, vapid attack-based distractions and patronizing manipulation — the Drudgian Freak Show — that has dominated our political debates for the last two decades at least.
Can aspiring to our better angels succeed in 2008 America?