That Values Thing

Will the Establishment Media Ever Get It?

President Bush has won his re-election bid leaving the leftists in the media scratching their pointy little heads

Watching Chris (let me shout you down) Matthews of MSNBC crinkle his brow over "that values thing" just has to make you laugh. Matthews may be a lost cause but fortunately the majority of America is not.

We are not France, we are not Europe, we are Americans and moral relativism doesn't fly here. We can't say, as John Kerry has, the we believe life begins at conception but then do everything in our power to destroy what is concieved when it becomes inconvienient or a handy research tool. We can't say, as John Kerry has, I don't support non-traditional definitions of marriage then do everything in our power to thwart traditional definitions. We can't say, as John Kerry has, that we will hunt down terrorists and kill them where ever they are and then call for terrorism to be reduced to a mere criminal nuisance and fight back with sensitivity and diplomacy.

We, most of us anyway, do not believe that the country is going to hell in a handbasket. Considering where we were in late 2001, reeling from a vicious attack, reeling from a stock market collapse, reeling from massive corporate scandals, and, of course, a hotly disputed presidential election we are in remarkable good shape. That being said, you wouldn't know it by the cachaphony of doom and gloomers here and abroad. Serious people can talk to the finer points of economic and social issues without resorting to hate filled rhetoric, but serious people rarely get the chance in this sound-bite world.

The American stock markets have rebounded nicely since 2001 to a point where most valuations are sound. Inflation is relativily low as are interests rates and unemployment. We are, whether people want to believe it or not, at war with terrorists and terrorist supporting regimes, and we are winning. There is all kinds of good news about the state of the human condition in the year 2004 if one were willing to look for it - you certainly won't find it on the evening news. If there is one thing that bothers me the most about the state of things is the notion that every thing wrong with America, and around the world for that matter, is some how George W. Bushs' fault. It patently preposterous to lay it all at the feet of one man.

So what is "that values thing" that supposedly swung the election the President's way? His personal integrity, maybe... A leader who believes in God and speaks optomistically about our great nation, maybe... A stand against the redefinition marriage, maybe... A rejection of "celebrity" value systems, maybe... A rejection of self loathing Americans, maybe... Or just maybe all of the above. Chris Matthews may never figure it out, but thank God a majority of American voters did.