America's Crisis of Character - WSJ.com

Noonan has put her finger on it: America's character is changing in lots of ways and news about episodes of degradation is spread widely by the media and the internet only accelerates the overall decline. Crass and wrong behavior is feeding our perception and the reality that America is on the wrong track.

When political and other 'leaders' pander to voting blocs rather than set high standards of behavior and character, we have the evidence that america is losing the high ground.

"People in politics talk about the right track/wrong track numbers as an indicator of public mood. This week Gallup had a poll showing only 24% of Americans feel we're on the right track as a nation. That's a historic low. Political professionals tend, understandably, to think it's all about the economy—unemployment, foreclosures, we're going in the wrong direction. I've long thought that public dissatisfaction is about more than the economy, that it's also about our culture, or rather the flat, brute, highly sexualized thing we call our culture..."