Presidential Showdown Highlights America's Critical-thought Problem

Presidential Showdown Highlights America's Critical-thought Problem

PARIS -- America has collective attention deficit disorder, and in one way it's a bigger threat than terrorism, cybersecurity dangers and the never-ending Middle East drama: Those other problems at least have the potential to be solved.

We witnessed this phenomenon last week during the first presidential debate. Washington pundits and policy wonks tried to sift through the rhetorical sandstorm for logical solid ground amid such concepts as Mitt Romney's revenue-neutral tax cuts and Barack Obama's wealth-creation proposition of tossing more money into the fiscal black hole of "new energy." For much of the voting public, however, the debate seemed...