Here's Siegelman about why the mainstream press, and many citizens, have ignored the story:"Well, I really believe that people just don't want to believe bad things do happen in America. You know, we want to believe that decisions to go to war are made on what . . . is our best national interest, or we want to believe that our justice system works fairly and evenhandedly, that innocent people don't get indicted. We want to believe that our elections, as opposed to the elections of other countries, are conducted fairly and honestly. But, you know, when we take a close look at what is going on, we find that maybe things are awry."
Siegelman's statements about the broad nature of the Bush DOJ scandal are spoken in the finest Democratic tradition. And for that, he deserves our nation's gratitude.
The Reverend Jeremiah Wright has offered similar insights with documented examples:
BILL MOYERS: What is your notion of why so many Americans ... don't want to seem to acknowledge that a nation capable of greatness is also capable of cruelty?
REVEREND WRIGHT: ... we are miseducated as a people ... because we're miseducated, you end up with the majority of the people not wanting to hear the truth. Because they would rather cling to what they are taught.
James Washington, now a deceased church historian, says that after every revolution, the winners of that revolution write down what the revolution was about so that their children can learn it, whether it's true or not.
They don't learn anything at all about the Arawak, they don't learn anything at all about the Seminole, the Cheek-Trail of Tears, the Cherokee. ... No, they don't learn that.
What they learn is 1776, Crispus Attucks was the one black guy in there. Fight against the British, the- terrible.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal while we're holding slaves." No, keep that part out.
They learn that. And they cling to that. And when you start trying to show them you only got a piece of the story, and lemme show you the rest of the story, you run into vitriolic hatred because you're desecrating our myth. You're desecrating what we hold sacred. And [what] you're holding sacred is a miseducational system that has not taught you the truth.
"We find that maybe things are awry"
For some people (native Americans, Afro-Americans, and the poor), clearly, things in this country, have been worse than awry for a long long time. There is no maybe about it.
