Oh, for straight facts and dialogue

October 20, 2008

Seems like all we get now is one point of view

It don't really matter what side you're on

Nobody wins when our choices are gone…

Both sides of the story often lead to the truth…

--from "Two Paper Town" by Steve Seskin

It's closing in on election time and by now folks in the so-called "battleground" states are sick to death of campaign advertising for the presidential candidates. If TV commercials were carbohydrates, every TV-bound political junkie would look like the Pillsbury Doughboy.

For reasons not particularly clear, both the Obama and McCain campaigns have decided to pass up buying much media in Arkansas. If you are a real politics addict, you might catch some of the slugfest on a cable channel or from broadcast media out of Memphis, Tulsa, Springfield, Dallas or Shreveport. Even then, the only state in this region that is truly in play is Missouri.

Now, that's a mixed blessing, because TV-addicted Arkies have had minimal interruptions of their soaps, sports, talk shows and fishing forecasts. What they will be missing will mostly be a gutful of hard-edged slime, innuendo and lies, intended to trigger negative emotions, doubt and fear. What few facts that appear are often distortions of the truth. At this point it is getting hard to separate what is true from what is not. It is no wonder that survey after survey says that Americans can't stand politics or politicians, regardless of party.

The hope that the so-called presidential "debates" would elevate the discussion of the issues between the candidates was naive optimism. The debating candidates used their time to air scripted sound bites and campaign messages. The low point came when Sarah Palin announced to the moderator that she would not necessarily answer the questions, and then blew off every question with a campaign riff. An interested citizen who wished to actually learn a candidate's thoughts on an important topic of national interest would have been sorely disappointed.

But, you might ask, can't we rely on the media to report and analyze what transpired? Well, not in this day and age. Unless you tune into McNiel-Lehrer on PBS, or, ironically, the BBC, forget any notion of hearing objective commentary. Today there is a celebrity "anchor," who interrogates celebrity "reporters," who embellish the facts with personal observations, often tainted by having spent too much time embedded in the candidate's entourage. And they are all self-proclaimed as "the best," or "the fairest." Mmm-hmm.

Ah, but how about those panels of experts? Experts? What we typically get is a political shill from each side, plus somebody who is supposed to add balance. Instead of analysis and interpretation, we get opinionated partisan advocates who attempt to shout each other down to get the last word. This is supposedly "fair and balanced" coverage. Yeah, right.

My newspaper publisher father took the separation of fact from opinion very seriously. It may be easier with the printed word. Today, few people take the time to read anything. Would it surprise you that more people say they get their news from fake news comedy shows like "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" than from an actual news broadcast or newspaper?

To make matters worse, it is very easy to manipulate information sent on the internet to mislead, distort or just plain lie. Often someone alters what another has written and sends it on without attribution. Small lies become large lies and nobody knows how it started. I have been shocked at the naked dishonesty of people who are so afraid of Barack Obama that they will circulate scurrilous allegations about his religion, race and family that have no foundation in fact, and yet do it from some misguided sense of pseudo-patriotic obligation. It is amazing to realize that some of the most-used sites on the internet are the web sites like "snopes.com" that de-bunk and accurately document urban myths that circulate with the purpose of misleading or hurting someone.

I would pose these questions: Are we ready to stop drawing lines in the dirt and start talking to one another instead of yelling at each other? Can we, after the election tsunami has rolled through, sit together as brothers and sisters--without regard to party, hurt feelings, insults, past slights and old grudges--and really work through this morass of problems we all share together?

Either the young black man or the old flyboy will get the job come November 4. Whoever grabs that brass ring will need all our help to keep from falling off the merry-go-round. It will not be easy, but it's long past time we start thinking about creative solutions, forgiveness, mutual security, sacrifice and healing.