Tragedy for Poland

You've probably heard by now of the tragic pane crash of a flight that left from Warsaw, Poland and was trying to land in Russia. The flight's passengers were government officials, almost 90 of them, including the president and his wife, army chief of staff, national bank president, deputy foreign minister, army chaplain, head of the National Security Office, deputy parliament speaker, civil rights commissioner and at least two presidential aides and three lawmakers.

They were on their way to a memorial service, to remember the more than 22,000 Polish officers who were massacred by Soviet Troops in the forest of Katyn 70 years ago. Memories are long in that part of the world, and 3 generations later, the Poles have not forgotten their soldiers. The government has been devastated, and the Russians have promised a full investigation, but despite the numbers of important people on board, it seems so far to be simply a terrible accident. The pilot was trying to land the plane in the fog and didn't succeed. I hope that's all that happened.

Now, here's something that struck me forcibly in reading that article. If this happened in the US, what would be the public reaction to the crash of a plane carrying politicians, bankers, and military leaders? I can guarantee it would NOT be the reaction that one Polish citizen had:

"I worry because so many clever and decent people were killed," said high school student Pawel Kwas, 17. "I am afraid we may have problems in the future to find equally talented politicians."

When was the last time that we used the words clever, decent, or talented when speaking of politicians? I'm not saying that's OUR fault--when was the last time we saw a politician acting as though they were clever, decent, or talented? For all Poland's problems--problems increased by this terrible event--they must be doing something right.