Myopic Hysteria

The can-do, bootstrap approach embedded in the American psyche is under assault. Eroding it is a dour powerlessness that is chipping away at the country's sturdy conviction that destiny can be commanded with sheer courage and perseverance.

Please.  Now, it's understandable why journalists feel this way, what with this year taking shape as the worst for newspapers on record.  It also makes sense, of course, when the MSM's candidate is a far-left liberal running on the mantra of "change" if it seems that everything is in such shambles that only radical "change" can fix it.

But how 'bout a little perspective? 

Yes, gas prices are terribly high -- but isn't that what environmentalists have hoped for?  More people using mass transit, and buying hybrid cars . . . for the greens among us, what's not to like?  Even Barack Obama says the problem isn't that prices are high; it's just that they went up so quickly.

As for the war in Iraq, even The New York Times has conceded that things are going well.

JP Morgan's chief equity strategist has forecasted signs of improvement in the US economy in the second half of the year.

Is everything just hunky-dory? Of course not -- especially not in a world where Iran is working hard to be in a position where it can blackmail the entire world with nukes.

But "spinning out of control"?  "Dour powerlessness"?

No.  Iran isn't holding our citizens hostage.  And the misery index isn't 22%, as it was at the end of the 1970's.  Rather, it's 9.4% -- hardly spectacular, but, please, a little perspective.  Read this by Robert Samuelson in the WaPo for more.

This is not 1979, and Barack Obama is not Ronald Reagan -- although it is worth noting that the MSM is wrong about Obama . . . just as it was about Reagan.