The McCain and Obama campaigns suspended their attacks on each other Thursday in honor of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on our country.
The two candidates paused to appear together at Ground Zero in New York as a show of unity.
Sadly, it appears that's all it is. A show.
Why does it take such a catastrophe to bring Americans together? And even then, it's only temporary.
Why can't the two camps suspend their attacks on each other permanently, and spend the remaining weeks of the presidential campaign telling us their competing visions for America and what they'll do to achieve them?
In the days and weeks following 9-11, Americans wept, prayed and waved flags on street corners and honked their car horns in support of the country. Members of Congress from both parties shared the Capitol steps and sang and pledged their patriotism.
Now, at times it seems we're tearing ourselves apart in bitter partisan, race and even gender squabbles.
We risk becoming our own worst enemy.
Thursday night, Obama and McCain made another joint appearance at Columbia University in New York -- not to debate, but to share their thoughts and feelings on public service.
Public service. It seems such a quaint notion in a day and age in which a vice-presidential nominee's personal and family life are being turned upside down and criticized and lied about in the most despicable ways. Why would anyone subject herself to that? Aren't we making public service nearly intolerable?
We're not calling for our leaders to take to the Capitol steps again and sing Kumbaya. All we're asking for is civility and leadership and the ability to work with those you disagree with.
We're looking for statesmen.
We've got a ton of problems to solve (see editorial above). They'll take every bit of wisdom and unity of purpose we can muster. We owe our children no less.
Barack Obama and John McCain are two gentlemen. Their campaigns do not reflect that. The two men need to de-fang their political pit vipers and get back on message.
We call on both men to adopt a Sept. 11 approach every day. Fight for your values, argue all day and all night until Nov. 4, show us how you'll do things differently from each other.
But for heaven's sake, and for ours, stop the rancor that's poisoning public service and distracting us from the tasks at hand.
Comments
The media won't allow the canidates to talk about the issues, they rather report what color lipstick the pig is wearing. Our great president just sent the Georgian government 5 billion in aid and our country is in a trillion dollar deficit. It makes no sense.
Attack politics seems to impress the voter much more then issues. When ss or taxes or border security or term limits are discussed, the voter turns to the cartoon channel. Mud slinging, gotcha comments and twisted spin keep the "common" voters attention. Maintaining the national infrastructure and establishing a legal national language are considered unimportant not only to the politicians, but the "common" voter. The 45 years of dumbing down of our educational system is a success.
As far as unity goes, there are major philosophical differences between conservatism and socialism. Right now the nanny state concept has been promoted on television and radio for the past 35 years and voters today feel they deserve a piece of the tax revenue in the form of a check. And, many Americans feel they should be able to take some money from successful people, just because they're more successful, and redistribute the money to themselves. This dependency attitude, that is being promoted daily, is a step closer to the slippery slope predicted by those that see democracy as mob rule. Too many voters are willing to relinquish their freedom in exchange for perceived security.
Part of the reason is because of biased, one sided newspapers such as yours. If you try to promote harmony and unity, perhaps people will follow.
patty, I agree about education. I disagree with voters being more impressed with attack politics, though. Look at the "debate" formats, set by the candidates themselves, not by the media or anybody else. "2 minutes to outline your understanding of national security. 1.5 minutes for a response. Then each candidate gets 30 seconds to rebut." Um, that's just stupid. Say what you like about Gingrich's political philosophy, he has had the right idea now for several years, in pushing for an extended series of lengthy debates, real debates, about real issues. You might make the case that nobody WOULD watch them. Ok, but at least they COULD watch them. By that I mean that the information would at least exist. You might not find a network to air them; fine. You can podcast, or, what the hell, We The People supposed "own" PBS, so require that they host and broadcast 10 debates @ 2 hours each, one topic each debate, with a real debate moderator who will insist that the candidate either answer the ACTUAL QUESTION BEING ASKED, or acknowledge that he or she refuses to do so. Even with PBS so clearly in the tank for liberals in general, I give any true conservatives good odds in such a forum.
How many of us appreciate that We, the People, should consider ourselves Americans and citizens before we consider ourselves Republican and Democrat partisans? How many of us appreciate that we Democrats and Republicans might consider ourselves opponents, but should never consider one another enemies? How many of us appreciate that our system is premised upon the belief that government is too important and powerful to be left by Us People to the unsupervised operations of elected politicos, bureaucrats and the lobbyists who attempt to manipulate them? Not enough?
double standard, the DIMocRAT controlled Congress wants to give the nations another shot in the arm check to spend. That don't make sense either. BTW, Congress gave Bush the $5M to send to GA.
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