can't we all just get along?

Anna Quindlen makes a modest proposal:

> Everyone keeps saying that this is a historic race. Right now it's
> historically nasty. But how historic could it really be if two
> presidential candidates were brave enough to reach across the
> divide and say the people deserve better than this? That goes for
> the press, too. It's cheap and easy to say the public cannot handle
> anything more than sound bites. It's worth remembering that the
> press decided to make the Gennifer Flowers scandal a story, but the
> voters decided not to make it an issue. They know how to pay
> attention if they're offered stories to which attention must be
> paid.

We can only hope. I'm afraid, however, that in this time of bellicosity and bravado, the steady, quiet voices of reason and intelligent discourse are bring drowned out by talking heads and pumped-up cartoon super-patriots. I fear for our country when our elected officials are not being held accountable for lies and distortions made for political gain. Anger is the natural reaction to betrayal, and this is what many of us are feeling right now. How do we cope with anger? Expressing the anger sometimes hurts more than pushing it down, and what avenues are left within the repressed strictures of patriotism and "support for the troops"? If anger is unpatriotic, then call me Benedict Arnold. I, for one, will be venting my anger in this forum and on election day. Those of us who decide to opt out of the political process have no right to complain about the result.

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