Newsweek Quindlen: Yes This Is Important

From Quindlen:
"Pay close attention. Do not get sidetracked. This is a message to myself. I, too, get snookered by small-bore bickering and secondary ephemera...Voters must become educated consumers to make that decision. They must draw on multiple sources, not just one...eight years ago, the American people embraced a good ole boy at the polls and wound up with a man neither insightful nor intellectual enough to manage the nation.

The presidency was once aspirational. Voters wanted someone smarter, better informed, stronger than they were.

It can't possibly be that we've become so insecure about our power, our primacy, our place in the world that we can't bear a person who stands on principle. It can't really be that America has become a nation so small-minded that intellect must be belittled. It can't really be about likability, can it? I don't need the president to be my friend. I have friends. What I need is someone to clean up the mess George W. Bush has made of the country I love.

Here is the only thing about anyone's kids that matters now: every time you vote you make your kids a promise. It's a promise that you will look past cheap slogans and lazy alliances to try to find a way to make America worthy of a new generation."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/160062/page/1