No politician is more important, or arguably, as influential as talk show host Oprah Winfrey, whose daily show includes a segment called spirit, that seeks to teach us how to live. What is curious here is the gap between perception and reality. The national crime rate has dropped 20 per cent from its peak in the early 1990s. Homicide rates are the lowest in 30 years. Teen pregnancy rates are at the lowest since 1975.
Most cancers are down.
And the American life expectancy is now 76 years - up from 54 years when the second World War generation was born. There is good news for the environment also. Twenty-five years ago, according to Gregg Easterbrook writing in The New Republic , only one third of America's lakes and rivers were safe for swimming. Now two thirds are. Toxic emissions by industry declined 46 per cent from 1988 to 1996, and smog has declined by a third since 1970.