Needed: Leadership, or a good film

Wise words from a wise woman, Anne Applebaum, writing in the Washington Post about Palin's Imaginary Washington. By her reckoning, as a native Washingtonian, "small-town Republicans have figured among the most powerful and most prominent Washington politicians for much of the past decade". What has been the result of this?

"Washington, however stuffy it may once have been, is no longer in need of 'a little bit of reality from Wasilla Main Street.' Washington is in need of expertise, management experience, long-term thinking and more political courage -- from wherever in the country it happens to come. More to the point, Washington needs people who think like national politicians and not like spokesmen for the local business executives who fill their reelection coffers and the local party hacks who plan their campaigns. Let's be frank: The 'bailout' bill was passed last week not because members of Congress decided it would work but because it was stuffed with the pork, perks and tax breaks without which no piece of legislation, however important to the nation as a whole, can now pass. Maybe it's unfair to call that 'small-town' thinking, but it sure is small-minded. And small-mindedness, not snobbery, is the dominant mind-set of 21st-century Washington."

Movies I watch each election year:

The Candidate
Power
Bob Roberts
Citizen Ruth
Primary Colors

On Deep Furrows Fred reviews what is perhaps my all-time favorite film, Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire.