David Brooks has not clicked with me in a long time, but I think his column this morning is eye-opening. He asks why liberalism has not come on strong, seeing how we live in a gilded age of plutocratic rising, and he seems to get at the root of the problem, and it takes up a major theme of Republican politics, namely the corruption of our federal government, and how liberals ought to be more concerned about addressing that problem, if they hope to get people to trust government more.

Unfortunately, I don't see a practical prescription for how to clean out the mess. You are tempted to say that you have to start over again, but that is obviously not a practical solution. I don't know if you can just pick at the problem, as Brooks proffers, but I suppose it would be something until a better idea, or the right circumstances, comes along. Of course, the truth is that we will just keep going down this road until it leads to absolute ruin.

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Obama's dismissal is: Americans, especially working-class conservatives, are unable, because of their false consciousness, to deconstruct their social context and embrace the liberal program. Today that program is to elect Obama, thereby making his wife at long last proud of America.

-- George F. Will for The Washington Post

Mr. Will takes his own shot at using Obama's 'bitter' controversy to take a broadside at liberalism, further confounding it with Marxism, and deconstructing it as the politics of condescension. Poverty and fundamentalism can be basic American values, I guess.