The phrase "sense of entitlement" is often heard when conservative politicians are discussing the moral failings of the poor. But it might apply more aptly to the politicians themselves, who, as Jeb Bush recently demonstrated, sometimes seem to be under the impression that their desire to become president should not oblige them to answer "hypothetical" questions, like whether knowing what is now known he still thinks it was a good idea to invade Iraq. I put the adjective "hypothetical" in quotes because it's Bush's word. I think other choices might have been more accurate: "predictable," "lollipop." Yet Bush didn't have a ready answer--on the first, second, third, or fourth try.
Sometimes, I look back on my days as a teenager, and am alarmed to recall the high regard in which I held some people--certain teachers in school, for example--who now appear to me to have been manifest dolts. But at least they were only schoolteachers, not top-tier candidates for the Presidency.
And one more thing about "hypothetical": it's one of those words, like "rhetoric," that has for some reason gotten a bad reputation. I guess maybe their meanings have changed without anyone having given me notice? It seems a person practicing the art of rhetoric is now necessarily a pomaded liar, and a hypothetical question is necessarily an unfair one. If, however, I am behind the curve on the shifting meanings of words, it still seems that, hypothetically, Bush is going to be president, and that voters might therefore wonder what that hypothetically would be like, causing them to ask some hypotheticals and, hypothetically, coming to the proper conclusion when he flubs them badly.
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