GOP crackpots can say any loony thing and be treated like statesmen while Dems taking aim at the chaos are ridiculed. So what else is new?

Chimpy has the gall to say, "All human life is
sacred," and doesn't get pelted with rotten fruit?

"All human life is sacred."
--Chimpy the Prez, vetoing his second stem-cell bill yesterday in the East Room of the White House

"I'm sure you've already noticed that the media has decided that the next president looks like Mitt Romney, sounds like Fred Thompson, is a strong leader like Rudy Giuliani and is fiercely independent like John McCain. On the progressive side, I guess, we've got a bunch of inexperienced, inauthentic, lightweight, shrill, cold, calculating hypocrites."
--David Brock, president of Media Matters for America, in a speech yesterday at the Take Back America conference

I don't know about this here 2008 presidential campaign. Even listening to the candidates, I don't get the feeling that I'm learning much about who they are or what they would do as president--and naturally, the closer each comes to "serious candidate" status, the more you get the feeling that the tone and content have been consultant-processed to sound like what the consultant thinks voters want to hear.

Oh wait, did I mention that I'm only talking about the Democratic candidates? I'm confident that I know all I need to know about the Republican horrors. My goodness, what a bunch! In greater or lesser degree I admire all the Democratic hopefuls; I just despair of crystal-balling what sort of presidency each might shape. Where the Republicans are concerned, the only question is, in what way(s) exactly would this thug's administration differ from the nightmare we've lived through these last seven years?

It's useful to be reminded, however, that this isn't at all the image that's being conveyed to the country at large. Maybe this has been obvious to all of you out there, who have probably been paying closer attention than I have, but I was really struck by this chunk from David Brock's speech at Talk Back America which was highlighted in the release sent out by his estimable organization, MediaMatters:

We're going to have a big challenge in the next 18 months. I'm sure you've already noticed that the media has decided that the next president looks like Mitt Romney, sounds like Fred Thompson, is a strong leader like Rudy Giuliani and is fiercely independent like John McCain. On the progressive side, I guess, we've got a bunch of inexperienced, inauthentic, lightweight, shrill, cold, calculating hypocrites. So we've made a commitment that we are not going to go through another election cycle accepting those caricatures, and today you make that commitment with us.

Of course, as soon as I read it, I realized that he's exactly right, as he usually is.

I don't suppose I really imagined that campaign coverage was going to give me a clearer picture of the substance of the candidates' projected administrations. But I don't think it occurred to me that, while some inescapable truths (McCain's casual dishonesty, Mitt's total lack of belief in anything except self-promotion, Rudy's sleight-of-hand about what he has claimed to believe in the past, not to mention the skeletons in his historical closet, etc.) may not be escaped for the duration of the campaign, the images are likely to become even more grotesquely phantasmagoric.

But then, isn't this the country where a lying sack of shit can proclaim, "All human life is sacred," without being pelted with catcalls and rotten tomatoes, if not actual thunderbolts? And then it gets reported in the media as if it weren't as great an affront to truth and decency as the human mouth is capable of delivering.

Sigh.