A year ago, if we'd read that employers were hiring again, that health-care legislation was proceeding without a bump, that Afghanistan suddenly was a nice place to take kids, we'd have known we were being lied to. We knew the problems President Obama inherited wouldn't go away overnight.
During his campaign, Obama clearly said that an economy that took eight years to break couldn't be fixed in a year, that Afghanistan was a graveyard of empires, and wouldn't be an easy venture.
Candidate Obama didn't feed us happy talk, which is why we elected him. He never said America could solve our health-care, economic and security problems without raising the deficit. He talked of hard choices, of government taking painful and contentious first steps toward fixing problems that can't be left for another day.
Right after the election, we seemed to grasp this. We understood that companies would be happy to squeeze more work out of frightened employees, and would be slow to hire.
We understood that the banks were lying when they said they'd share their recovery. That a national consensus on health care wouldn't come easily. Candidate Obama never claimed that his proposed solutions would work flawlessly right out of the box, and we respected him for that.
Today, the president is being attacked as if he'd promised that our problems would wash off in the morning. He never did. It's time for Americans to realize that governing is hard work, and that a president can't just wave a magic wand and fix everything.
Ellie Light
Philadelphia
So, here is the curious thing. Ellie Light wrote this and was from Philly. Strangely enough....over the next couple of days....Ellie Light also wrote the same letter and had it appear from thirty-odd newspapers in the US...each time stating another home town which she was from. Naturally, it was the town where the newspaper was based.
How do you accomplish something like this in terms of getting a letter published in a newspaper? Well....I've written around five letters of such note in my life....and in each case....the newspaper called me or sent an email to ensure I was who I said I was.
The odds of getting your letter in thirty-odd papers within a seven-day period? This is another issue.....it can take up seven days minimum and maybe up to fourteen to actually see it published.
Here is a moment of pondering. Go and ask each newspaper to pull out the original letter and the address on the letter......I'm prepared to bet that none of the thirty newspapers can do this. Yes, NONE of the newspapers will be able to identify the address or email or show evidence that they ever called or checked on the reality of the person.
I'll also ponder this.....that Ellie Light is really living out of one house....not thirty different ones in thirty cities.
Finally, I'd ponder that the guys who run these thirty-odd newspapers.....probably aren't subscribing to any brand of ethical thinking.
As for the real Ellie Light? She's probably a cigar-smoking Tusla truck-driver, who likely six-times married, an Elvis fan, and does needle-point. I'd really like to believe that....and not that she resides in DC and works for some political agenda team who has access to thirty-odd newspapers who don't ask questions.
