Bob Greenberger

Bloggers far more plugged in than I have been spewing about Bush and/or Kerry for months now. Still, I wanted to jot a few thoughts down before tonight’s debate.

On the local level, I am shocked at how the majority of people in my hometown get their news from the Letters to the Editor section of our two weekly newspapers, as opposed to, say, the news pages.

No doubt, on the national level, people form their opinions about the facts from the slow osmosis of factoids absorbed from political ads, headlines for news shows and jokes cracked by Jay or David or Jon.

Additionally, the Republican campaign has masterfully kept Bush and Cheney on message for months now. Only recently has Kerry managed to pierce some of that by referring to the “fantasy world of spin” that has Bush making statements that fly in the face of reality.

Bush has stayed on topic so is seen as strong and decisive. With the chaos around the world, people seem to be taking comfort in the notion that we have a man who can make a decision in the White House. And the thinking apparently stops there. No one is probing how these decisions are made or what the repercussions might be. Kerry has failed to make the questions stick, the mainstream media can’t seem to keep the questions in the forefront and the general public remains ill-informed.

Kerry and his handlers have bungled the message. He’s been seen as cold and aloof, and despite evidence to the contrary has been tagged a flip-flopper. Only now is he coming out swinging and it may be too late. Voting has begun as many states have allowed people to begin mailing in their ballots. Thousands upon thousands of ballots have already arrived and will be counted on November 2.

(The biggest flip-flopper might be Bush himself who campaigned four years ago as a uniter, a theme curiously absent from his stump speeches this time around.)

For the rest of us, I can only hope that the debates, beginning tonight, show us more about both men. Can Bush be knocked off message and be made to defend the disastrous campaign in Iraq? Can Kerry make a strong enough case that he can command? Can either answer a question without pausing to attack the other guy?

Yes, I want Bush out of office. Iraq has been a costly distraction from Osama Bin Laden and honestly, he’s taken his eye off the globe. Since he took office, North Korea has been a larger problem than Sadam Hussein. The Sudan is raging out of control and despite Genocide Treaties that call for action, the United States and United Nations let people be raped and killed.

I dislike an administration that outright lies. They’ve been caught at it, such as misleading Congress on the cost of the Medicare revamp. Worse, they have censored numerous scientific documents from around the administration. A cabal of politicians that refuse to let the facts cloud their world view is leading us. As a result, our standing in the world is tarnished, our economy is rocky and our ecological grows increasingly fragile. Then there’s the issue of appointing new Supreme Court justices that would alter the court for decades to come.

Would a Kerry Administration be better? Hard to say since we have no clue who would receive top posts. He’d also have a tremendous amount of damage control to perform which would slow down his own Agenda, which in turn could bite him during the mid-term elections. Still, I doubt there’d be as much lying. Sure, there’d be a certain amount of bungling, but it’d be honest hey-we-just-got-here errors not ones of omission.

Listen carefully tonight and for the rest of the nights. Make sure your friends and family know what they’re talking about before they head into the voting booth. Four more years of the same administration frightens me.