>Please keep in mind that the optimism some discuss is not shared by all.
>As the latest polls show, it is shared my a very small majority.

Hi perry,

Duly noted. I want to point out however, that with saying "naive american optimism" I'm by no means implying that all americans are naive optimists. I was already stumped by similar assumption in a thread regarding discrimincation where the factual sentence does provide any basis to draw that conclusion, but in a cultural sense it seems to carry that interpretation.

Hence my remark to Sam, that miscommunication in this respect might be due to language and cultural differences.

OTOH, I'm glad to see that more and more american begin to realise there is something very wrong proven by the fact arround the war in iraq, corruption in politics, failure at help after katrina, torture in guantama bay, etc. I hope that common sense wins from the 'naive optimism'.

Walter,