The Absence of the Poor in Punditry

Right now, my favorite political pundit on television is Charles Barkley.

That's right, Charles Barkley, the former basketball star. He's now doing sports analysis on the TNT network. But it's his political analysis that really sets him apart from the run of the media mill.

Two years ago, he entered the basketball Hall of Fame. But his greatest achievements, as far as I'm concerned, aren't with his jump shots or rebounds. They're with his recent on-camera assessments of the state of American politics — and the absence of poor people in the picture.

Barkley appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" last Tuesday night. With distinctive clarity, he spoke about politics and the presidential campaign.

"Race should not matter," said Barkley, who is African American. "Unfortunately, in America, race does matter. Race matters almost as much as economics because, really, this election comes down to rich people against poor people. That's what America is divided by."

He added: "Of course, we have the racial thing, but, really, America is divided by economics. And I wish it wasn't there, but it's always going to be there. It's unfortunate, it's sad. But, clearly, things in this country are not going well. They're not going well."

Charles Barkley doesn't speak like a professional pundit. He speaks better than that.

Along the way, Barkley took on one of the great platitudes of present-day political reporting — "the middle class."

"This economic situation, you know, I get sick and tired of people talking about the middle class," he said. "This economy is really struggling with poor people. ... We've got to start helping the people at the bottom. I hear about rich people getting tax breaks.

I'm one of them, thank God. But we talk about the middle class. America — the poor people in this country are really struggling. And we've got to do something to help them out of this situation, more than anything else, after this election."

Yes, Barkley did lapse into one political cliche. "This country, this is the greatest country in the world," he said. Then he got back to substance: "But what has happened here in the last few years is unacceptable. And I don't get caught up in the Republican/Democrat/conservative/liberal B.S., as I call it. I look at America like this — it's rich people against poor people. And right now, poor people are getting screwed. And I feel bad for those people, plain and simple."

Plain and simple. We need more of that.

Charles Barkley says he's planning to run for governor of Alabama in 2014. I wish him good luck. But in the meantime, I hope he'll try to find a full-time gig as a political commentator on one of the cable news networks.

It's notable that — even, and perhaps especially, at a time when the economic crisis is by far the biggest concern on people's minds — the news media continue to render poor people all but invisible.

People who are losing houses that they've owned are all the rage. And those stories can certainly be heart wrenching and newsworthy. But what about people who never owned a house in the first place — and now are choosing between paying rent and eating and buying necessary medicine?

The people in those kinds of situations used to be called "poor." Now, in medialand, they're not called much of anything — because, on television in particular, they scarcely seem to exist.

In the real world, they exist. And their lives are as precious as anyone else's.

Norman Solomon is author of "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death." The book has been adapted into a documentary film of the same name. For information, go to: www.WarMadeEasyTheMovie.org.

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