The great divide

Just got back from a lunch where Susan Eisenhower spoke to White House Fellows and Gettysburg people. She spoke eloquently about her fear that America may not be up to the task of dealing with all the crises we face because we are more interested in winning political points than solving problems. She lamented that when you bring people from the right and left together to talk even about straightforward technical issues, they can't even agree on the facts.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that these days it is our friends on the right of the political spectrum who are more factually challenged. To whit, the latest Newsweek poll, which reports that 52 percent of Republicans believe that Barack Obama "sympathizes with the goals of Islamic fundamentalists who want to impose Islamic law around the world." Seventeen percent of Democrats believe this and 27 percent of independents, so Republicans don't have a monopoly on stupidity here. Still - if a majority of Republicans believe Obama sympathizes with Islamic fundamentalists, what hope is there for a reasoned debate about the issues?