Call me young or new to witnessing the world of politics, but not many things in this world surprise me as much as negative politics, specifically negative ad spots. Somehow, the negativity always catches me off guard right when I think we’ve moved forward as a society. You know what I’m talking about – this movement-for-change thing.
In the light of recent negative ad spots from both campaigns, the “forum” led by Rick Warren more than a week ago almost makes me laugh. As I relaxed to watch the full replay of the purpose-driven forum on CNN a couple of Sundays ago, I began to think that perhaps this campaign wouldn’t be so gruesome after all. I was naively inspired by the non-debate, and perhaps only the likes of a pastor and self-help author could provide two hours of sanity in the hell that will continue to pile up during our semester.
In the Saddleback Civil Forum on the Presidency, Warren kicked off the event by saying, “We need to restore civility in our civil discourse.” While Warren’s optimistic goal for political discussion might be cheesy, it is true.
“In America, we’ve got to learn to disagree without demonizing each other.” Amen, pastor.
Now, let’s take a look at what happened. The forum proceeded for two hours with absolutely no debating, interrupting or candidates trying to outdo one another with witty comebacks. It was brutally organized and covered issues that matter, especially those at the center of the concerns for one of the forum’s targeted audiences, evangelicals.
Few times have I seen church-going conservatives applauding the words of a Democrat. For a sweeping instance, it appeared we were not so different after all, even on those tough areas like abortion and taxes. What I saw in Barack Obama sitting in the hot seat was a Democrat who appeared to be reaching across to the other side of the political spectrum in order to come to some kind of agreement, even though he doesn’t fully agree on key issues with conservatives. And what I saw in those church members who applauded a liberal almost as much as they applauded John McCain were conservatives who did not fit the general stereotype advanced by loudmouth left-wing pundits. As it turns out, conservatives are tolerant and “open-minded,” too. They even clapped for Obama on the issue of same-sex marriage.
All of that took place on Aug. 16. Now let’s look at what happened the following week.
Oh, no! McCain wasn’t in the “cone of silence.” As I sat to watch CNN the night after I saw the forum, large, bold headlines reminiscent of The Enquirer flashed up and down the screen and speculated about the honesty of Pastor Warren. The journalism world was duty-bound to make this civil forum controversial.
Journalists weren’t the only ones doing their part. The candidates themselves continued to unleash a series of attack ads on television the following week. We didn’t see all of them, because they were strategically locally-placed ads.
“Mr. Obama, whose candidacy has been built in part on a promise to transcend traditional politics, is running the negative commercials on local stations even as he runs generally positive spots nationally during prime-time coverage of the Olympics,” The New York Times reports. A litany of those commercials, including some from the McCain campaign, are viewable on the Times’ Web site.
Such attack ads are degrading to political opponents and the intelligence of viewers. They go so far as to portray opposing candidates as something less than human, and sometimes they are simply inaccurate. For instance, McCain’s campaign recently ran an ad making false claims that Obama gave political favors to power broker Tony Rezko, according to FactCheck.org. The ad was a response to one of the Obama campaign’s ads that poked fun at McCain for not knowing the number of homes he and his wife own. Misleading ads from both campaign’s are reviewed on FactCheck.org’s home page.
In light of the fact that all of this negativity is deeply ingrained into American politics and even politics in general, the speech Joe Biden gave after being summoned by Obama Saturday is laughable.
“I’ve been disappointed in my friend John McCain, who gave in to the right wing of his party and yielded to the very ‘Swift Boat’ politics that he once so deplored,” Biden said, according to the Associated Press.
So, now we are back to slandering and throwing insults. I’m sure many pundits will continue to make us fearful of the candidate they oppose, the candidate who will surely be the downfall of America since America is believed to be summed up in the face of the president.
I have to commend Warren. For a small second, the country was able to engage in real political discussion.
Matt Watson is the opinion editor of The Reflector. He can be contacted at [email protected].