What Has Happened to Our Society?

For any fairminded American who believes strongly in this nation’s ideal of selfless public service, watching President Barack Obama’s address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night was an ordeal.

Politics has always been a raucus profession — part circus sideshow, part comedy and part TV gameshow with a touch of melodrama thrown in for good measure. Still, its noblest practioners over the course of American history have always found ways to rise above the partisan muck.

Today, though, something seems to be different; there’s a feeling of animosity and hatred in the air between political foes that we’ve not noticed before.

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And it continues straight through to the president’s speech to Congress on Wednesday.

“It” is a profound hatred, a profound distrust of government and anyone in government.

From the muck of this national psychosis have arisen people who actually believe President George W. Bush and elements of the U.S. government were behind the 9/11 attacks, either allowing them to go forward to form the basis for a war for oil or actually planning them.

From this same mire have sprung people like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, with her cynical conjuring up of federal “death panels” in an attempt to derail health care reform. Or those who believe President Obama is a foreign-born alien, ineligible to be president, a closet Muslim, a veiled Marxist/Leninist intent on subverting constitutional government in America.

Or folks like Rep. Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican, who, from the floor of the House of Representatives, called the president of the United States a liar during the nationally televised speech.

Behavior like that is uncalled for; it’s outrageous; it’s disgusting; and it’s childish. But it’s what passes for political discourse these days, either in the halls of Congress or the town halls of Central Virginia.

In our version of the perfect world, leaders of the Republican Party would forcefully and unequivocably denounce Wilson for his slander of the presidency. They would say to the Rush Limbaughs, the Glenn Becks and Sean Hannnitys of conservatism’s loud, lunatic fringe, “Shut up! You’re doing your country no good by fomenting hatred of the president or Democrats.” And they’d say to Mrs. Palin, “Educate yourself about the legislation before opening your mouth and scaring people for pure political gain.”

And in that same world, Democratic leaders and others on the left would say to their whacko fringe, “George Bush had as much to do with 9/11 as did the man in the moon ... the masterminds and killers were radical Islamists intent on destroying Western civilization.” They would tell the Keith Olbermanns and Rachel Maddows to re-examine the effect their rantings and rash bravado has on political discourse and either to clean up their acts or slink off the stage.

But sadly, we doubt any of it will ever come to pass for, you see, in this day and age, conflict and either verbal or physical fisticuffs are what makes for great political entertainment.

We want to laugh viciously at our opponents, firm in the belief that they’re as bad as we’ve come to believe. We don’t want to look upon them and see fellow Americans with whom we disagree but who’re still patriots.

There’s no fun in that. Politics as bloodsport is what we want, and it’s what we’ve got.