What Politicians Never Say in Public...

At this point in the political process - in the days right up before the election - one finds it harder to ignore a tendency some would call the most annoying and disturbing tick of political discourse in general, which is the necessity of avoiding at all costs any direct reference to most obvious, messy and controversial truths at the heart of a particular issue. Well of course, some would say...how can politicians be expected to utter incendiary remarks on issues as untouchable as: unemployment, the economy, the housing crisis, budget deficits, tax reform, entitlements, foreign relations, the Middle East,  foreign intervention, immigration,  gun control, etc. I mean - wouldn't it be weird (and therefore absolutely great, wonderful, wacky, downright surrealistic) if someone just ambled up to the podium for once and let loose a stream of unfiltered remarks:  "For starters, voters are out of touch and misinformed... The media has sold its soul to the gods of entertainment...Pundits never apologize....everyone contributes to pollution (and plastic bags aren't helping things)....Snobbery (or should I say "class conflict") is alive and well....Who the heck isn't part of a "working family?"...War is costly....it creates budget deficits, casualty lists, funerals and rising health care expenditures - not to mention increasing numbers of head trauma patients and suicide rates... We don't want it...we don't need it...there is no win-win, zero-sum game involved and there never was...." And just when the audience starts gaping with alarm, they hear: "Sorry to mention this folks, but we seem to have a surplus of 'automatic' as in 'meant-for-the-battlefield-only' type weapons in circulation...we might have to prevent mentally unstable people from stock-piling these things..." Huh? You can't be serious... "There are too many adults who are shirking their responsibilities as spouses and parents..." - stop, stop, I can't take it -  "Marriage in this country is broken and we might want to start having a conversation about how to fix it..." - I won't listen to this! - "the prison system in America is not presently doing an effective job of rehabilitating people...in fact it is damaging them further... in some cases beyond repair" - No more, I beg you. I can't handle the truth! -  "the drug war cannot be won until we get a handle on the 'demand' side of the equation..." -  "....the only way to permanently fix the budget crisis - in lieu of 4% GDP growth per annum - is to alter entitlements like Social Security and Medicare - which would mean raising the retirement age and regulating (i.e. cutting back on) extreme resuscitation or life-preserving measuring for terminal patients." Scary, I know.  This all sounds rather callous, brazen, impertinent and insanely blunt - doesn't it? One would be tempted to take it all back or make it all go away, but there's more - "we will never ameliorate poverty in America until everyone owns up to the fact that they fear it like the plague....and while we're at it, can we for once face up to our extreme ambivalence toward wealth and success... why do we celebrate, venerate, admire, exult, literally worship anyone who "fits the bill" as a celebrity, VIP, beautiful person - showering them with praise for howsoever them came to their 15 minutes of fame... while at the same time excoriating and disparaging other, less-famous but equally successful people for their fine educations, their arduous career-paths, their academic excellence, their job-related accomplishments, their intellectual pedigrees, their cultural sophistication? Why do we want our leaders to tell us that they've grown up in log cabins and scraped by for years living from paycheck to paycheck (which isn't exactly the case) until luck and good fortune allowed them accidental entry into the middle class - in the same breath extolling the bling, the clothes, the luxurious homes and decadent habits of glitterati set?