Once the Circus Leaves

The job of the next president will be akin to the guy who sweeps up after the circus animals leave the ring.

Pat B. Allen, Ojai, Letters to the Editor (Los Angeles Times, January 21, 2008)

This is a fitting opening to today’s post. A quiet uprising is covering some ground despite being ignored by major media sources. A friend recently emailed me an excerpt from Lee Iacocca’s April 2007 book: Where Have All the Leaders Gone? You can find the excerpt here. Here is the short and sweet version.

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

(Excerpted from Where Have All the Leaders Gone?. Copyright © 2007 by Lee Iacocca. All rights reserved).

Please read it.

So, have you heard of Iacocca’s book? I had not and I got curious. Am I living in an isolated shell? I did some internet searching to see if I could find book reviews by the Los Angeles Time, New York Times, or the New Yorker. The only hits I found were the presence of Iacocca’s book on the New York Times nonfiction best seller list. Other than that, major news outlets have completely ignored this publication. Makes you go hmmmmm.