My Sunday Feeling

After Tuesday the long national nightmare will be over. I am referring, of course, to the unending Presidential election of 2008. I am not naive. I know that, in the immortal words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, "politics ain't beanbag."

Politicians stretch the truth about their opponents and themselves. Sometimes it is shading facts. Salesman's "puff talk" as the old contracts cases on warranties used to call it. Sometimes it is overt lying.

And they all do it. I know this and most of the time I can survive a Presidential or statewide election by relying on the fact that I still have pretty good hand speed for an old guy and can get to the mute button on my remote in a flash.

My candidates appear on screen, I hit the mute. Their candidates appear, I hit the mute. I treat them all fairly and equally. I refuse to listen to any of it.

Anyway, even though I have pretty low expectations for truth and veracity to come out of your average campaign, still I am amazed at how the Republicans have aggressively pandered to the more paranoid and willfully ignorant of the electorate. PM over at strangepup recently discovered the latest headscratcher recently put out by the GOP's favorite hockey mom, Sarah Palin.

Palin recently said that the "attacks' on her by the 'mainstream media" had dark First Amendment implications for us all.

" If (the media) convince enough voters that it is negative campaigning for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," she told talk show host Chris Plante. " then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and out ability to ask questions without fear of attacks from the mainstream media."

A Catholic priest of my acquaintance likes to say that funerals present opportunities to teach. I think breathtakingly stupid comments such as the Governor Palin's disquisition on the First Amendment provide me with the same opportunity.

The long and the short of it is that the the Bill of Rights-for which the First Amendment bats leadoff- protects the rights of individuals against unwarranted incursion BY THE GOVERNMENT. Not by individuals. And not by pesky reporters asking troublesome questions.

As I have written before, if the Mayor of Little Rock kicks down my door, grabs my laptop, seizes my HP printer, and confiscates my cameras, THAT violates my rights to freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. My buddy Pat telling me to shut the hell up while he is trying to putt, which happened with some frequency yesterday, does not. And neither do reporters' questions about Sarah Palin's campaign tactics.

Let us pause at this point to give equal time to the irresponsible commentary from the left. We are nothing if not fair around here.

It has been reported that known student of history Erica Jong has stated that if Barack Obama is not elected, there will be a second Civil War and that blood will run in the streets.

Jong's commentary is no less fatuous than Governor Palin's. But Erica Jong is the author of tedious feminist literature, some of which constituted grounds for prior restraint if ever there were any.

That's some First Amendment humor there folks. And it's not a very good joke if I have to explain it. I know.

Back to the script. Erica Jong isn't running for the second highest office in the land. Sarah Palin is. And here's the question you have to answer for yourself. Either Sarah Palin lacks the most rudimentary grasp of civics and constitutional law or she is merely pandering to the lowest and most paranoid denominator of the electorate A part of the strata that neither knows nor cares what the law or the facts are just so long as someone-granted an uncommonly attractive someone-gives voice to those darker assumptions and prejudices.

Tuesday night can't get here quick enough for me. Until such time as I can turn on a football game and not have campaign ads substituted for beer and car commercials, I shall have the remote on permanent mute.

It's my right under the First Amendment.