Monday, April 16, 2007

Take Me To Your Leader! Uhh, Who's That?

I got out of my car at the elementary school the other day and idly glanced at the car in front of me. The car had a nice, shiny, bright bumper sticker stuck inside the back window. The bumper sticker read "Dump Bush." I did a double-take.

Uh, folks? Is there something you should know?

Maybe it's been there since '04, but then I would expect some wear and tear, some fading. What in the world?

I assume they know Bush is the president. That's good. Heard on the news today that fewer Americans than ever before know the name of the American president, vice president, or the governor of their own state. I'll test my fifth-grader on these tomorrow. She and her classmates are so busy training to the TAKS tests she has to pass to get to sixth grade (despite her straight A and B classroom average) that I hear teachers no longer have much, if any, time to teach current events.

I may need to get back on my Prozac. I have looked forward with satisfaction to the waning months of Bush's term as president, but as I look at the teeming hordes of politicians on both sides jockeying for position as viable candidates in '08, I am overcome with gloom. The field does not shine with promise. With more citizens unaware of who the president is, or apparently, when his term ends, outcome seems a little grim.

Surely things will get better. Surely.

1 comment:

Matt G said...

Ahem. You may have to ask YOUR fifth grader?!? Excuse me?

You didn't have to ask me or my brother; you knew damned well that we knew who the bleedin' president was. This isn't your fifth grader-- it's someone else's, whom you've taken on to tutor.

Really just clarifying that point for everyone else's benefit.