I don’t know if I even want to go here, but I guess we’ll see what happens.
I was poking around the web sites for the two presidential candidates and I noticed something rather disturbing. The George W. Bush site has tons of anti-Kerry material. There’s an entire Kerry Media Center taking jabs at the Democratic candiate. Over at the John Kerry site you’ll find a Rapid Response Center that counters Bush. Both sides take their caustic little jabs (Kerry’s “The REAL George W. Bush” and Bush’s “Kerry Flip Flop of the Day”), but I’m amazed at how many Bush seems to take. There’s a ton of videos on the Bush site, and many of them are simply attacking Kerry. While the Kerry site does have a few anti-Bush ads, it’s not exactly an equal percentage of negative ads.
What really amazes me is that the Bush site actually offers John Kerry’s acceptance speech in its entirety. It’s presented as ‘in his own words,’ as if the speech itself is enough reason not to vote for Kerry. Among all the biased, negative ads we actually have some semblance of a balanced approach. Huh? I kept waiting for an edit or text countering what Kerry said in his speech, but nothing.
If only the rest of Bush’s site was like that. And perhaps my complaining is off base. I’m only speaking from my visit to two web sites. Maybe Kerry has plenty of other groups doing the Bush bashing so he doesn’t have to. I don’t know.
What really bothers me about all of it is the inability to have a simple discussion. Each candidate has to blame the other one for doing this or saying that, then jump on them for an apparent contradiction, often ignoring the context. The whole point is to come out the perceived winner, no matter if your point is correct or true in any sense.
No Child Left Behind is an example. The Bush site accuses Kerry of flopping on the issue, pulling quotes from Kerry both supporting and challenging the law. But from my minimal knowledge of No Child Left Behind I know a lot Democrats intially came together with Republicans and supported the bill. But then after passing the bill they saw how much money Bush planned to give No Child Left Behind and they realized it was vastly underfunded. So now they denounce it. (Why you would vote for a law without knowing the funding source is beyond me, but apparently that’s how Congress works)
Simple background knowledge like that really clears up the issue. But does either side give that kind of clear reporting? No. They think it’s enough to cite their quotes. There’s enough goofball Bushisms out there to warrant the use of a simple thing called context. You can’t harp on a man for an innocent slip of the tongue.
Is it really that hard to tell the whole story? One Bush ad accuses Kerry of flip flopping on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site. According to the facts the Bush site gives, it seems Kerry has flip flopped. OK, but where does Bush stand? I don’t know. A search found the answer buried in a speech: Bush is for the site. OK, I understand the point was to paint Kerry as a waffler, but is it that hard to give the whole story?
Take any issue and both candidates lay out their pie-in-the-sky vision. Kerry rattles off his plan for peace in Iraq like it’s a no brainer. But there’s no explanation of what’s been done or tried or why or why not. Kerry wants to bring in NATO, but haven’t we already tried that? I thought we did, but maybe not. Where’s the complete picture?
No wonder my generation hardly votes.
