Letter to the editor

I would like to opine a little more on what Mr. Rupert Howell made mention of in his article “Will Negative Ads Dominate in Round 2” in last Friday’s issue.

In this 2008 political arena, all measure of civility has been lost. Grown and hopefully mature men and women have been behaving so poorly a “time-out” should have been enforced.

Similar to that of Pavlov’s dog, it seems if you stick a microphone up to the lips of a politician, and then play a sound bite of one of his opponents, foam immediately erupts from his mouth, and he begins to twitch like a dog stricken with distemper. Sadly, politics in this age of instant media has dropped to a level beyond deplorable.

The Davis and Childers election was worse than the epic hillbilly battle between the Hatfields and the McCoys. For several weeks, Mississippi had become the epicenter for redneck politics central. To put it mildly, it was a disgrace. Issues of real substance were never spoken. Mississippi is the ultimate loser. By all measures, the presidential election is turning into the war of the brats. Once again, we lose. As long as we bite that bated hook of negativity and superficiality, positive change will be silenced.

Finally, at some juncture, we need to hold our politicians and our political parties to a standard of “good manners” that we teach our children.

We must demand   from them truthfulness and succinctness concerning the problems that we face today. Really, is that too much to ask?

Cordially,

Dr. Andrew Brasher
Batesville