AP's Ron Fournier at CNN: Politics Gets Meaner as Election Nears.

[CBHagman]

From the article:

In Miami, Carol Agrait stirs sweetener into his Cuban coffee and shares these bitter thoughts: ``Man, it's a mean political season.''

Indeed, it is.

From the rhetoric of the candidates and their advertising to the conspiracy theories and invectives trafficked on the Internet by untold partisans, the political process is awash in acrimony. The reasons vary.

It's a close election in a divided nation and the stakes are high - war in Iraq and on terror, just three years after the deadliest attack on U.S. soil. President Bush has governed from the right after a disputed election. The previous president, Democrat Bill Clinton, lied about having sex in the Oval Office with an intern and was impeached for it.

Bush and Clinton galvanized their rival partisans.

And through all this rose the Internet - a megaphone for every disgruntled, disenchanted or disturbed individual who wants to make a point. The ``Silent Majority'' is bellowing.

``Bush is a monster,'' read an e-mail signed DBarrett and sent to news organizations after the first debate. ``Kerry is a craggy-faced puke,'' read another.

It doesn't stop there.

Vice President Dick Cheney curses a lawmaker on the Senate floor. Alan Keyes calls Cheney's lesbian daughter a selfish hedonist.



My thoughts:


Oh, brother. Here we go again. Fournier comments on the meanness of the political season and plays the "pox on both their houses" game, attempting to suggest that both parties are equally nasty. He leaves out discussions of the hate-fests that are Bush-Cheney rallies (i.e., the screened crowds screaming "Flip-flop" at the mention of John Kerry, the nasty insults yelled at John McCain), Karl Rove's dirty tricks, and the legacies of Nixon, McCarthy and Atwater.

But suggesting that both sides are playing the same game is rather unfair. For starters, not all politicians play the negative game. I can think of Republicans who conduct both their campaigns and their Capitol Hill careers with grace and dignity.

And suggesting that Kerry's mention of Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter was somehow nasty is absurd. Sure, it ruffled the ol' GOP feathers to have to contemplate the reality that gays and lesbians are part of our families, workplaces, circles of friends, and culture, but it was not an unkind act.

Actually, Fournier does bring out some good points, especially about history, but he neglects the all-important matter of Karl Rove and how desperately the Bush family relies on negative campaigns.

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/story.jsp?maxphotos=5&phototerm=Kerry+Bush&flok=FF-APO-1131&idq=/ff/story/0001%2F20041015%2F1334992737.htm&sc=1131&photoid=20041014ORRB102

[IIgnoreNobody]

1. Fast and loose with the truth

A television ad by a Democratic interest group compares Bush to Adolf Hitler.

Fournier is obviously informed enough to know that this is a mischaracterization.

[NYC Liberal]

2. Yeah, which "Democratic interest group" produced such an ad?

Is it:

a.) Not MoveOn.org
b.) Not MoveOn.org
c.) Not MoveOn.org
d.) Not MoveOn.org

[flpoljunkie]

3. It was an entry in MoveOn ad contest--NEVER an ad, to say so is

not only disingenuous, it is a lie, meant to influence the campaign. Another journalist who chooses not speak truth to power, but to enable the corrupt, inept Bush administration.

[grasswire]

4. tell him

[e-mail]