Can civility restore America?

[groovedaddy]

Is it just me, or is America experiencing culture-war fatigue?

Consider the presidential campaign, once forecast to be the most divisive in modern times: It's shaping up to be (let's pause here to knock on wood) downright civil.

Sure, we have the usual media hype over she said/he said about Martin Luther King Jr. and other manufactured controversies. But thus far calls by candidates for more civility and bipartisanship appear to be resonating with many voters in both parties.

A civility climate change may prove ephemeral, but for the moment at least a growing number of Americans are demanding more statesmanship from the two major parties -- or else face formation of a third.

http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080122/OPINION04/801220336/1054/OPINION

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. It's only January - 9 months of campaigning left

It's ugly enough in the intra-party campaigns (OK, no-one's done a Karl Rove 'illegitimate black baby'-style job on anyone this time, but maybe that just shows Rove and Bush really are the Worst People in the World), but when the Republicans know who their Democratic target is, it could get really bad.

[Ganja Ninja]

2. Civility?

God I hope not. The last thing we need is to play nice with the GOP. They've sown the seeds of America's destruction and I want them held accountable. I hope it gets so nasty for them they crawl back under the rock they came from.

[groovedaddy]

4. I hate to say it BUT "They started it!"

It's the g.o.p. who took politics to the gutter and they work hard to keep it there!
I hate to see it within the Democratic party but, as others have pointed out, it's either now or in the general election, because the repubs will resort to it.
The lack of civility is a problem but it isn't the fundamental problem. That's the skewed economic times we live in where corporations are getting their way - writing laws that favor their bottom lines, funding campaigns so they can get those laws passed and promoting trade agreements that line their pockets but leave the middle and working class in the dust.

[blindpig]

3. In different times- less urgent times-

there is much to be said for courtesy. But these are not those times.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

5. D's aren't doing too bad, they're testy but haven't traveled to "Chuck Norris says" territory.

The R's are just hopeless. MKJ

[BridgeTheGap]

6. An important distinction needs to be drawn here

There is huge difference between the "politics of the personal," which is really a distraction, part of the "cult of personality" and the dynamics that are actually taking place in this country. This shows up in how debates are moderated and what candidates are asked.
Why isn't global warming being addressed? The past 7 years have been ripping at the fabric and foundations of our country. Asking what role politicians have played in this disaster seems entirely appropriate, not as a personal attack but as a revelation of what they really believe in.

[Loge23]

7. Real Change

After watching the horrendous display of churlish behavior last night from the media candidates, I can now firmly state that both Republican and Democrat partys are dead.
We don't so much as need change as much as we need to acknowledge that change has already come.
The Republicans and their mob have all but destroyed this country. Meanwhile, the Democrats front runners can't figure out either who is more Republican, or what being a Democrat truly is.
Last nights "debate" was a disgrace to the small sliver of intelligence that is left in the collective brain of American voters.
John Edwards was the only clear winner - and that because no other candidate was allowed to be there!

Folks, we have to do better. I urge everyone to pull their support from the two front-runners. Someday, we can once again take pride in nominating a candidate other than a rich white guy. When that happens, it shouldn't be noticed. But neither of these two (Obama & Clinton) truly understand the situation we are in or the, more succinctly, the situation THEY are in.

[Salty Dog]

8. War Fatigue

Not so much WAR FATIGUE just a lack of engaging, insightful reporting.
When journalists are embedded the news tends to all follow a similar tack.

[tom_paine]

9. No civility with authoritarian totalitarians. Those monsters started this reopening

of the "Nazis side" of humanity, unlokced through propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, lies and repetition of same.

Like the Nazis and the Jews, the Bushies projected their own evil on us, their victims (soon to be literal victims as Middle Phase becomes Penultimate Phase...and the shock of economic calamity is coming right on time for them).

The Bushies said we were serial liars who wanted to take over the world, but it was only themselves they were describing.

And go ahead, America, try and form a third party and you will quickly see that you/we only believe we're free because we haven't tested the bars. Oh, the shock you're in for when the Bushies decide that's enough of your futile bar-turning!

[bemildred]

10. No, we have to take our government back from the corporations. nt