Presidential mud-wrestling - just as U.S. want it

The American public can be glad that the presidential candidates and their running mates are not excessively sexually active. And they're not - everyone would have known by now if they were. That saving grace is the only thing keeping the electorate from a complete descent into the mire.

The electorate is long accustomed to that mire - politics in the United States has a distinct tone that is not always very attractive from the outside. A question worth considering is whether American politics can ever again rise above the mire. This election was unable to.

Mudslinging is the prerogative of the weaker party - the dominant side has better things to do and better ways of dealing with its opponents.

Four and eight years ago, George W. Bush seemed to have acquired his fellow Republican Ronald Reagan's "Teflon" quality and analysts decried the inability of the Democratic Party to produce realistic leadership. However he did it, Bush's performance was a display of leadership. But how fast things change. Bush is now openly acknowledged as the least successful and least popular president ever. That is not an easy act to follow for John McCain, but he was undoubtedly the best endowed with leadership among the Republican contenders to succeed Bush. His primary victory was easy and uneventful. The emergence of Barack Obama was more dramatic. A gifted orator, Obama is tall dark and handsome, far more pleasant to look at and listen to than the stodgy and much older opponent.

The issues have been defined and the candidates' positions elucidated in the normal course of the campaign process. As RT has noted more than once, the reaction of the American public was often tepid and equivocating. McCain threw the first mudball, starting out small, with comments about women and Obama's "celebrity," and working his way up the dirt scale.

A continual mudflow makes a response in kind almost inevitable. Otherwise, the target simply just disappears in silence under the mud. And there we have it: a bored, unexcited public that already has as much information as it needs, a weaker candidate (as one always is) who is anxious to maintain his rating and mud flying in a free-for-all. It is natural and predictable.

Ultimately, the blame for the low tone of the campaign proceedings, if there is indeed a question of "blame," rests with the American public. It gets what it wants. The situation came to the point it is at today from higher ground. John F. Kennedy's womanizing, for example, although well-known today, was not a topic of discussion at the time.By Bill Clinton's time, the situation had changed radically. The Republican Congress has its reasons for using the president's sex life as a line of attack, and the media had other reasons for encouraging it. And the world was enthralled by it all. Hillary, Monica, the cigar, lies and confessions, the jillion-page bestselling Starr Report - what a show!

Now, after making merciless fun of her, an easy target, the media reacted altogether seriously to Sarah Palin's statements about Barack Hussein (Oooo!!!) Obama's "palling around" with a terrorist. The question should be asked: did that statement have any more meaningful content than her statement on the Wall Street economic bailout that Saturday Night Live quoted verbatim as a comedy skit? Do McCain's links to a 1980s financial scandal tell us anything substantive about his current positions? There content can be summed up with less than a whole word: Oooo!!!

Passion is a dangerous thing when left unfettered. False patriotism and ideological cant are impediments to the sober choice between candidates.

But apathy can be worse. It is hard to believe that the candidates have run out of things to say about the state of the country and the world and the challenges that will face the next president. It is apparent that the American public has stopped listening to them. They want a show and will reward the one who gives it to them. Maybe there are times when the public should not be given what it wants.

If the descent of politics into the mire is indeed irreversible, it could at least be curtailed. The campaign season could be shortened and otherwise restricted, for instance. Or maybe the people get the government (and politics) they deserve. They cannot be forced to think soberly about or even pay attention to things that have long lost their serious tone. Like the nontransparent American election system, their frequently slime-covered political process seems to suit the American people just fine.

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