Telling the Truth

RISHON LEZION, Israel – Thomas Friedman, as usual, hits the nail on the head:

We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes…

We need a president who is tough enough to tell the truth to the American people. Any one of the candidates can answer the Red Phone at 3 a.m. in the White House bedroom. I’m voting for the one who can talk straight to the American people on national TV — at 8 p.m. — from the White House East Room.

Who will tell the people? We are not who we think we are. We are living on borrowed time and borrowed dimes. We still have all the potential for greatness, but only if we get back to work on our country.

Friedman gets it. But will Hillary Clinton, John McCain, or Barack Obama get it?

I live in a country where most people dry their clothes on clotheslines. To use only as much energy as is necessary, I flip a swith to heat the water a half-hour before I take a shower and then turn it off immediately afterwards. (Every bathroom has these.) Toilets have two different levers to flush, so people use only as much water as needed. People drive small cars, not SUVs. The country is investing in many different forms of alternative energy (primarily solar). People live more simply; they don’t need the biggest house, the latest fashions, or the newest mobile phone.

Developing countries are revamping their entire infrastructures while America’s is falling apart. High schools in the United States cannot compete with those in Europe and Asia. China and India are transforming their economies while America’s is unraveling. (That is what happens when a country’s primary form of economic growth is a result of consumer spending and people going into debt.) The United States increasingly borrows from other countries (including China) to finance its growing debt. It is now the United States’ turn to learn from other countries.

The American people voted Jimmy Carter out of office after he told them some uncomfortable truths. I don’t think they would make the same mistake again.