Don't Believe the Hype...

I'll admit it- I'm a former political junkie who still occasionally struggles with looking at deciding who will run our country like a college basketball fan sees March Madness. 

I was a College Republican, and "graduate" of the Morton Blackwell School of Leadership (ever wonder where the Republicans get all those clean cut, young political operatives? You know- the ones who help with all the "dirty tricks"? That was me. Remind me to tell you about an after-hours foray into a Planned Parenthood convention the night before a march... on second thought- never mind.)

I was a rabid Rush fan. I listened every day, went into withdrawals if I was traveling and couldn't find him on the radio and even listened to the recasts on the weekends. 

And before 4 years ago, I had never voted anything but Republican. 

I could talk the talk- I knew the spin and could argue politics anytime. 

But like I say- I've changed. I'm not registered as belonging to any party. I try to approach each election and vote based on the person, not the party. 

And in the midst of all that, I'm trying to walk away from the "politics of personal destruction" that Bill Clinton rightly decried. What was done to him and his wife was appalling, and though I'm not really a Hillary fan, I regret (and repent of) my participation in the smears and character assassination that they endured. Yes- my role was a small one. But for every "Trooper-Gate" rumor I passed on, every time I brought up Vince Foster, every Monica joke and Whitewater reference... I'm truly sorry. 

But... my participation in all that is why I know character assassination when I see it and that's what's happening right now with Sarah Palin. I thought the Jeremiah Wright thing with Obama was patently unfair. And so is this.

I don't want any longer to fall into the binary trap that says we minimize everything bad about "our" candidate and blow into ridiculous proportion everything about "theirs." That's why I'm as unconcerned with Obama's ties to former Black Panthers and Syrian national Tony Rezko (see how easy it is to make someone seem sinister?) as I am that Palin would fire someone in state government for his refusal to fire a Trooper who tasered his own 11-year old son and threatened to put a "f***ing bullet" in the head of Palin's father. I'd have fired someone who let a guy like that keep wearing a State Trooper uniform too. 

All of this stuff- all of it, can be made to sound like either a matter of National Security and Serious Lapse in Judgment and Ethics... or it can be seen to a matter of real life- decisions and friendships and choices that we aren't privy to and should be careful of judging- whether we're talking Obama and his pastor or Palin and her ex-brother in-law. 

For instance- Palin is being criticized for going back to work three days after having a baby. Yes- he has Down's Syndrome. As far as I know, that's going to matter a lot more years down the road than at 3 days. But what really happened? Did she go in for a couple of hours? Did she bring the baby? Was Dad staying at home and with the rest of their four children holding down the fort?

We don't know, and without a full picture of what happened, speculating on it just feels like gossip.

And a double standard- Biden took his first oath of office standing by his son's hospital bed- the son who had just lost a mother and sibling in a car crash, knowing it meant he'd be leaving that son to recover while he went to work on spending bills in Congress.

Don't get me wrong- I'm not saying Biden made a poor choice. What I am saying is that how you look at it probably has more to do with your party affiliation than anything. Democrats read that story as heroic. Republicans read it as a shocking choice to put a political career over family.

You can spin it either way, and like with Sarah Palin working after the birth of her son, no one who wasn't there really knows. Why are Feminist Democrat women critiquing this woman? Why are Republicans defending her 17yo pregnant daughter? Take any of the critiques, switch the party affiliations and you will see a magical switch in those defending and attacking as well. Bet on it.  

I refuse to look any more into the crap some people want to sling Obama's way. Radical roots? Shady connections? Closet Muslim?!?! Don't care. I know character matters- believe me, I know. But I won't discern Barack Obama's character by listening to republican hacks tell me what's wrong with the guy.

And I won't learn a single useful thing about Palin by listening to most of what's been said about her these last few days. 

The only way the media will stop this crap is if good people stop giving their ears to it.

UPDATE: 

I'm with Paul: 

"Anyone who thinks that the Republican Party is a party of hate or mudslinging in some sort of unequivocated way should have come with me to Peet’s this morning and tried to accomplish anything at all while sitting next to roughly eight senior citizens and their endless sound-bites directed at Sarah Palin and her family. 

I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard anyone slandered like this before - in politics or elsewhere. Really disturbing.

Hate speech aside, I suppose I can’t understand why anyone is so dogmatically convinced by either candidate in this election. Both bring much to the table, but they also have extremely glaring flaws."

Read the rest here