ICONS

Americans just love their icons and institutions. Who can blame them? The great rockers, Springsteen, Young; The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, that Americans have adopted as their own; its glamorous Hollywood stars and starlets; its newspapers - the Old Gray Lady, so punctual and dependable on the doorstep every morning, complete with trendy book, theater and film reviews; its ivory tower curmudgeons; its sexy talking heads on cable; it’s pompous senators and congressmen – all remain dear to the hearts of Americans.

The election of Obama was an effort on the part of the American people to reconcile their differences with these, their beloved icons; to provide a space for the relationship to heal. Bush seemed to be the only thing that stood in the way. Get rid of Bush, it was thought, and America would be proud and whole once again. All the icons stood vocally united in their hatred of the president, and though we couldn’t quite figure out why, we were willing to take that Kierkegaard-inspired leap of faith just so that our TV’s would stay tuned to our virtual late night friends, and our universities would stay open for our kids (who, by the way, we had no interest in seeing return with nothing to show).

It was not to be. We had no idea that they despised us so much. How they were so eager to spurn our attempts to make nice. How they didn’t think twice before robbing us of our savings; of our jobs. How they still talked behind our backs about how stupid and uninformed we are; hayseed hicks with gun racks in our pickups; lecturing us as if we were children that east is west, up is down, black is white…

I found it interesting that Air America goes out of business this week, right after the political earthquake in Massachusetts. A network a spokeswoman is quoted as saying, “We had tried to incorporate more humor and move away from being an ‘angry’ liberal version of conservative talk radio, which can be argumentative and aggressive. I think the progressive or liberal audience likes a different type of discussion."