I am impressed every day with how out-of-touch the press is.
Consider this from the February issue of The American Prospect:
•In the 2003 race for Philadelphia Mayor. Republicans got up a fleet of 300 cars driven by men with clipboards bearing insignias or decals resembling federal Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alchol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives insignia.
"These pseudo cops spent election day cruising Philadelphia's African-American neighborhoods and asking prospective voters to show them some form of identification - an age-old method of voter intimidation."
OK. Hang onto that report while considering another:
• Rep. Billy Tauzin is the Louisiana Republican who helped get the recent prescription drug bill through the Congress, a bill that pleased the pharmaceutical industry. Now Tauzin, whose term has a year to go, is thinking of quitting to accept a $2 million offer to head the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drugmakers'lobby.
(Neither Tauzin nor PhRMA confirmed the report. They didn't deny it, either.)
OK. GOP intimidation of black voters in Philly and a GOP Congressman close to getting his reward on earth for services to industry.
Now consider this, from Dan K. Thomasson, a Scripps-Howard columnist:
What this country doesn't need (in its presidential campaigns) is 10 months of nasty negativism from either party....
Both candidates ...will be qualified to discuss (big issues) without resorting to mudslinging. Is it too much to hope civility is the key to this election?"
My answer? Yes.
My country needs the Democrats to engage in a gutsy, tell-it-like-it-is, down and dirty truth-telling assault on the White House.
Nothing less will do.
And journalists ought to stop playing the Marquess of Queensbury and start uncovering this Administration's Watergates.
They might start by tracing the links between the Bush family, US oil interests and Saudi Arabia. Just follow the money, as Deep Throat advised.