Triumph of Democracy, The US Free Elections and Its Enemies

I am unabashedly an ardent admirer of the US democratic system.It is crafted by the great thinkers,the “Founding Fathers”- Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and Ben Franklin. This year when I was in Nashville, attending the wedding ceremony of my son, I talked with an older American gentleman,who told me he firmly believes that these great men were guided by the "Holy Spirit". I interpret his remark in a German Philosophical sense of Spirit, and felt sympathetic. These men, together with several other key players of their time, were Philosopher-Leaders -- in its Platonic sense, who structured a sophisticated system of checks and balances that allows the collective voices of people be expressed freely and individualistically, and be materialized in a meaningful way. It is a powerful legacy that has passed the test of time and has been vindicated in the historical second-term victory of president Obama.

This is why, despite a fragile economy, mountainous debt and deficits, a badly fractious Congress and a strong disagreement over the policy, president won a second term in the United States. Because, after a grueling multi-year primary season,with a multi-billion dollar costs, the American electorate was able to fully asses the candidates and evaluate their economic and social policies in the context of financial soundness (it's arithmetic), and it's fairness with regard to gender, race, education, health, and social security. The system did evaluate  various shades of policy including Ron Paul's Libertarian views, Governor Perry's compassionate conservative approach, Rick Santorum's hard-line social conservative crusade, and so on, and decided to test the pragmatic conservative view of Governor Romney against the pragmatic progressive policies of President Obama,

Unfortunately, the ‘facts’ that many Americans see or read are usually presented with a partisan slant and have been filtered through the sensationalized media lens. Many journalists, unable to see the near perfection of this democratic system, or in search of fame and a fistful of advertising dollars, shamelessly try to undermine this magnificent system. Some of the following videos represent a case in point. A proper reaction by a responsible journalist would be to accept the fact that "People have Spoken", and respect this choice, trying to contribute as united citizens in a civilized country for the good of all. In the words of President Clinton the fabric of America’s moral foundation, as a nation is based on the axiom that “we are all in this together.” An axiom which is formed by a society that has grown strong because the benefits of economic expansion and innovation were shared broadly, establising that what is morally decent is also economically sound.

 

However, more terrible and shallow treatment of the American election has been offered by some Canadian journalists. For instance, Conrad Black, the former newspaper baron who in 2007 was convicted of obstruction of justice and fraudulently diverting shareholders’ money at his company, for which being sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison wrote:

A shocking $3-billion was spent to keep a failed administration and mediocre congressional leaders (House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid) in place, operating a system that is very corrupt and is almost completely dysfunctional. Almost nothing worthwhile was said during the campaign about anything substantial. There is nothing in any of it to celebrate. An incumbent president was re-elected to a second term with fewer electoral votes than he had the first time — the first time this has happened.

Using the language of sexually obsessed high school male, he continued his pseudo-analysis:

Except when he chose Paul Ryan for vice-president and defeated the President in the first debate, Mitt Romney was never up to the task of running for president. He campaigned for the position for seven years, was knocked out by the valedictorian blunderbuss John McCain four years ago, and passed over by him for vice-president in favour of that trans-Bering Strait geopolitician masquerading as a sexy librarian that all we superannuated male undergraduates once lusted after, Sarah Palin... In the past year, an astonishing procession of unlikely Republican claimants arose: Michele Bachmann (anti-inoculationist), Rick “Oops” Perry (who forgot one of three cabinet departments he was going to abolish, proudly jogged with a loaded pistol in his shorts and was the recipient of a vasectomy from his father-in-law), Herman “Hermanator” Cain (American Promiscuity’s Man of the New Decade), Newt (the Human Grenade with his hand on the pin, forever saying “watch this!”) Gingrich, and Rick Santorum, who seemed to be running for president of a revivalist society for Pius IX. Each seized the leadership in the polls, so unsteady was Romney’s status, and each was exposed by the well-funded Romney campaign as unsuited for the great office at the end of the rainbow.

Rex Murphy another Canadian political analyst for CBC and National Post , who appears to believe that an exaggerated overacting of a muddled logical construct, delivered pompously may somehow be taken seriously as a sophisticated analysis, and according to the CBC website "is noted throughout Newfoundland for his biting comments on the political scene and his television tussles with prominent politicians, wrote:

The current size and expense of American presidential campaigns, as so exceptionally illustrated by the Obama-Romney effort, is a politically morbid condition. The presidential campaign cost anywhere from two to six billion dollars, an amount of money that used to build dams, partly fund space programs or launch initiatives for the poor. Now the rivers of cash finance the Uncivil War American politics has become. They set in motion a mechanized, hyper-aggressive, poll-driven marketing campaign that wanders ever farther from any notion of a democratic ideal.

It appears that Mr. Murphy, believes that "election" does not merit any cost and should be done in the way China elects her leaders at zero expenses, allocating those funds "to build dams, Partly fund space program ...." He feels "a vague sadness that so expensive a campaign produced so small an election." Why small is not clear. He continues:

The election has come and, thank the Lord, gone. It has been waged in earnest for at least two years, and held hostage the attention of a near infinity of news, entertainment and talk shows. No venue was beneath the effort of at least one of the candidates. They were everywhere from the languidly snarky Jimmy Kimmel’s program, to the deep-furrowed brows of the Sunday-morning symposia. Obama sat down on the Couch of Wisdom with Barbara Walters and the Sister-Votaries of The View. Romney for a long while rationed his exposure, showing up mainly on the station of the already bewitched — Fox.

Thus, criticizing Americans for taking their election so seriously that at least for two years in a near infinity of ...shows, and even an snarky show have time for it. Of Course, Mr. Murphy prefers instead that presidential candidates present sophistic speeches to the exclusive elite clubs!! He Continued to criticize Governor Romney for looking like his speeches were "being orchestrated by an IKEA instruction booklet writer … this little bit goes here, and then this one goes there". The Governor did not need this type of attention instead he needed to work on "a shiver of excitement or stir a smile. Bluntly, Mitt was dull, intrinsically dull. And dull never works."

Even the more measured and calm voice of Andrew Coyne was not to see any merit in spending $6 billion on the American Presidential and congressional election campaign. After all democracy is not that important. He wrote:

What, in the end, did all that money buy? In the presidential election, two states, Indiana and North Carolina, switched from the Democratic to the Republican column. The Senate likewise underwent a swing of just two seats; the House, three. In short, a whole lot of nothing. Well, not quite nothing. True, money didn’t seem to buy much in the way of elections: for example, of the 10 candidates backed by Karl Rove’s organizations, American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS, to the tune of nearly $160-million, just one was elected.

In other words Karl Rove's $160 million must have bought more seats. Mr. Coyne, like all other critics, does not give any credit to the intelligence of American electorate, who can see through the negative ads, and automated “robocalls”, -- perhaps a reason for Karl Rove being so agitated in the above FOX video.