Think about it. Maybe this is why we are where we are these days.

Iconic Anomalies. Those really quite rare people and circumstances that cause us to brand everything its category with the same broad brush.

Here are a few:

"Welfare queens driving Cadillacs". There were one or two such people discovered many years ago (the 1970s?) in a welfare fraud investigation in New York City. One that made the evening news was an obese black woman driving, indeed, a Cadillac. She had even gone so far in her fraudulent claims to use other people's kids as actors to play her own children so that the case worker would grant her a greater monthly stipend. She became the public face of the anti-welfare people. Sure there was fraud. There always was and there always will be. This egregious example was, however, an Iconic Anomaly. A rare case that, to this day, colors rational thought on the topic of society's obligations in caring for the least of us.

"Revolving Door Prisons". Willie Horton. Need I say more? His case is probably less rare than the one above, but it is, still, the rare exception.

"The Popularity Of The Tea Party". Agreeing with these corporate funded opinion makers on an issue or two does not a movement make. For example, I know real birthers who favor gay marriage and single payer health care. Go figure. There are most likely very few people who are really as politically .... what's the best term? .... ill informed? ..... as the media makes the movement out to be.

"Job Creating Rich People". This one is a real hoot. Corporations create jobs. Even tiny little businesses are most likely corporations, LLCs, PCs, or some other form of legal entity that is not a person (their legal status as such notwithstanding). Rich people crate very few jobs. Maids, maybe. Tennis instructors. Yacht builders. Maybe even a few sales clerks in the marble countertop department at Home Depot. But significant numbers of jobs? Nope.

There are lots more. What others occur to you?