War in the Mud

General George Patton is said to have remarked of war, “God help me. I love it.” This ambivalence of knowing that my love is perverse catches how I feel about elections. I love them, and I hate the bloodshed, the filth and the destruction of decent people.

I hate the gutter politics of personal destruction as practiced by all sides. No one who slings mud admits to it. They blandly say, “The people have a right to know where we differ. I’m against child molestation and you’ll have to ask my opponent…” Ugh!

Last week Hillary played the Osama card against Obama. It was deplorable. She told how in the first week that English Prime Minister Brown was in office there were two terrorist attempts and how we too could foresee being tested early in the next presidency. Frankly, Bin Laden would be happy to do something dramatic and destructive whenever he can. But by playing the fear card, she is following suit with George W. What kind of change is that?

Obama used one of his surrogates to play the race card. .On the Today Show Jesse Jackson Jr was asked about Hillary’s tears. He dismissed, what I take to be a genuine and unscripted moment by attacking. He commented that her tears were for herself, not others and wondered rhetorically where her tears were for the people of Katrina? The clear implication is she is selfish and doesn’t care about poor Black people. Despicable.

So far the Republicans have contended a bit cleaner, but this is likely to change as a front-runner emerges. Scrutiny is fair, but lies and distortions are not.

We ought to hold the candidates responsible for what they and their surrogates say and do. We will see attacks on Hillary’s character not policies, on Obama’s Muslim name, on McCain’s mental capabilities—both cognitively age-related and temperament. It is going to get ugly then uglier.

God help me. I love it.