The Sunday talk shows were a study in contrasts, the same old, same old - - Joe Scarborough on Meet the Press, again? - - and every now and then new light shed by someone who actually possessed in-depth knowledge about a given subject. Often we tend to be buffeted between rabid nonsense and theories too arcane for most people to absorb.
On Sunday's Washington Journal Karim Sadjapour, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who holds both Iranian and U.S. passports, was a voice of clarity. In the wake of Iran's recent elections and their violent aftermath he discussed the situation without the political grandstanding that so often accompanies discussions of world events in this country. The Iranian political landscape, he explained, resembles, in American terms, a range between David Duke on the far right and Bob Dole on the left - - not much of a spread but differences nonetheless.
Mousavi, while no liberal by our standards, sought reforms to address the country's weak economy and high unemployment rate, conditions Ahmadinejad has failed to ameliorate. That Ahmadinejad was declared the winner by a wide margin seemed odd to many, the guest suggested, because the results were announced so quickly in a country where ballots are hand-counted - - and millions of votes had been cast. Typically enough a woman called to say Muslims were historically a violent people from whom we shouldn't expect much. She was rebuked by Sadjapour for insinuating that Muslims are somehow "culturally inferior." After all, he said, the murderous regimes of Stalin, Mao and Hitler, for example, were not ruled by Muslim leaders.
By contrast, Mitt Romney on ABC's This Week gave the predictable partisan response to events in Iran and the role of government in general. He said President Obama's policies were "not working", as North Korea and Iran make obvious, and that he had been too apologetic for American behavior - - a Republican talking point that, far from gaining momentum, has begun to wear. He added that the U.S. should be more involved and go out of its way to criticize the election results in Iran. Sadjapour, on the other hand, had said that, while we can voice support for the efforts of reformers, American influence was not substantial in Iran, and we must be careful not to seem as if we were inserting ourselves into Iranian politics.
Romney went on to criticize governmental interference in the private sector. If government performed so well we'd have government-run farms, trucking companies and so on; Government just doesn't manage things very effectively, he said. That is always the observation of people who make millions in the corporate world and never have to worry about educating their kids or finding adequate, affordable health care. For most ordinary Americans, however, a federally-run Postal Service provides fast, expert service; and for the elderly, Social Security and Medicare are exceedingly well run. Anyone who calls either service is amazed to discover their records are quickly found, their questions answered by a person who seems to know who they are.
The trick of course is finding the means to pay for all these services, but there is little proof that privatizing any or all of them would be more cost effective. Consider the plight of retirees had their social security benefits been privatized at a time of economic distress like the one we are experiencing now. Many retirement funds have suffered in any case, but the government stands behind its established programs - - the intended safety net.
As for the future of the Republican Party, Romney like so many other presidential hopefuls, continues to suggest there's nothing wrong with the party's message, only that its isn't clear enough. According to him "Hispanics", for example, should support Republicans because theirs is the "party of opportunity"; it is simply a matter of getting that point across and the Latino vote would return en masse.
As is said "Talk is cheap", and relying on media forums for credible input can be a sometime thing, a fact proven every day by the usual suspects; one is only occasionally startled out of the parallel universe in which most of us are compelled to reside. As Alexander Pope said so long ago "A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." Too often we are persuaded by pseudo experts and fail to venture past the false premises of narrowly-conceived partisan rhetoric.
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Lots of "Talk" on Sundays