Ben Stein writes an upbeat and settling piece in the The American Spectator. He travels this country and meets cheerful, optimistic, kind people -- whom he thinks will support President Bush in November.
The exceptions are the coffee drinkers (MR STEIN, NO!!!) and the media mavens in the urban enclaves:
The mass media outlets are usually based in New York City, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., all major centers of pessimism and anger. For reasons better understood by a psychiatrist than an actor and commentator, the people in the media in these places often -- but not always -- loathe and fear their own country in many ways. This shows in their endless "Hate America" pieces on the air, showing every kind of vice and crime and sorrow, and only rarely anything good. The news stories on the nightly news in America might just as well come from Al-Jazeera as from America, that is how filled with bitterness at their own country they are. America is torturing Arabs, repressing Black people, stealing the savings of the elderly, oppressing women, denying the elderly medical care. This in a nutshell is the news from the major networks and newspapers in America.