‘Authenticity’
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Rich liberals who claim they’ll help America’s less fortunate are phonies.
Let me give you one example — a Democrat who said he’d work on behalf of workers and the poor. He even said he’d take on Big Business. But the truth is that while he was saying those things, he was living in a big house and had a pretty lavish summer home too. His favorite recreation, sailing, was incredibly elitist. And he didn’t talk like a regular guy.
Clearly, this politician wasn’t authentic. His name? Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Luckily, that’s not how the political game was played 70 years ago. F.D.R. wasn’t accused of being a phony; he was accused of being a “traitor to his class.” But today, it seems, politics is all about seeming authentic. A recent Associated Press analysis of the political scene asked: “Can you fake authenticity? Probably not, but it might be worth a try.”
. . . But Mr. Thompson’s strength, says Lanny Davis in The Hill, is that he’s “authentic.”
Oh, and as a candidate George W. Bush was praised as being more authentic than Al Gore.
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Paul Krugman News Politics Al Gore Bush 2008 John Edwards Fred Thompson Hillary Clinton Franklin Roosevelt
