Musings from the Co-Host

There's a lot going on in our busy, complicated world, so it's heartwarming that our offering has generated some interest and feedback. Thanks, on behalf of Dano and myself, for your comments, criticisms and suggestions. We do appreciate it.

Our goal was to create a format for intelligent conversation, and so far we've succeeded. So it's sad to consider that, while we here in this little corner conduct debate in a way that can only be described as honorable, there are people on the national and international scale whose only agenda is to denigrate and destroy, through whatever means possible, those who would seek to lead our nation.

Jerome Corsi, who started the "Swift Boat" movement in 2004 which doomed the candidacy of John Kerry, is at it again. His book, listed as a New York Times Bestseller (not hard, by the way - 10,000 copies will do it. Print a 90-page anything and publish it from your computer, have your mom buy 10,000 copies, and you're a best selling author) is called "Obama Nation". Put the words together and you get his drift. This book, of which I have read inserts, is a collection of rumor, exaggeration and bold-faced lies regarding the Illinois Senator who would be President. It incorporates the worst of the worst the media, the Internet and the radical right has to offer to demonstrate that Obama's success would be the downfall of America.

Two things make me really sad in regard to this publication. First, Corsi doesn't deny anything I just said. He really doesn't care that his book portrays Obama in a false light. He freely admits that the only reason he wrote it is to help assure that Obama is not elected. For that reason alone, I would implore you to simply ignore anything you hear about it, or fight to get the media and the Republicans to vocally and vociferously repudiate it. America should hear no more from this malcontent.

Secondly, Mary Matalin, a conservative voice that I once respected, has lent her name to this fallacious diatribe, thus costing her whatever credibility she once had. Her husband, liberal commentator and political advisor James Carville, must be grinning over his corn flakes at his wife's major screw up. I would love to be a fly on the wall at their house as the "I told you so's" are mingling with his signature chuckle.

My hope is that the media will treat Corsi in 2008 as they treated Ralph Nader in 2004 - a non-entity on the political scene not worthy of conversation. If that happens, perhaps we will see a return to civility and respect on the campaign trail. Does this suggest there won't be attack ads and personal digs against the opposition? I'm not that foolish.

But maybe, just maybe, this will be the year when we make our decisions based on how well our candidates articulate their positions on the issues that are really important. In other words, how well they do what we're trying to do right here. God, what a wonderful world it would be.