In praise of average Americans

Daniel Drezner offers both a sympathetic reading of and, in some ways, a forceful rebuttal to U.S. Food Policy's comments on obesity revisionism. In the context of other recent studies of average Americans -- their weight, their savings behavior, and their television habits -- Drezner criticizes well-meaning paternalism. U.S. Food Policy is nonpartisan, but we couldn't fully dodge Drezner's sharpest words: "For Democrats, Americans are obese spendthrifts susceptible to faith-based argumentation at the expeense of logic and evidence. For Republicans, Americans are obese spendthrifts susceptible to the temptations of a debased popular culture at the expense of moral probity." For the record, I try as well as possible to insulate the factual reporting in U.S. Food Policy from my instinctive Republican loyalties.