Campbell Brown Pleads: 'Don't Let This Devolve Into A Campaign That...We Are Sickened By'

Hey everybody! What do you think about the ugly turn the presidential campaign has taken in the past forty-eight hours? Truly, it has managed to degenerate considerably beyond the ugly turns that have gone on for the past 4,800 hours. It helps, of course, when one candidate tells the New York Times, "Hey, yeah, well, we sure hate your gollydarned guts, but here's an exclusive for you: WE'RE GOING CRAZY NEGATIVE." And so now it's all William Ayers and Keating Five Webisodes and pretty soon, no one in the country will be in the tank with anyone except for maybe Tina Fey's imitation of Sarah Palin, which is one of the few things you can see on teevee these days that actually takes the American people by the hand and whispers, soothingly, "This is not your fault."

CNN's Campbell Brown mounted a spirited call for a return to some degree of politesse and decorum at the top of her newscast last night. Brown termed Palin's "pallin' with terrorists" line "outrageous," but also accused Obama of dredging up past McCain issues that he once averred were "not germane to the presidency." Then, Brown took up for everyone in America who's not looking forward to their eyeballs bleeding from all of the vitriol:

There is just one month left. Please, please, don't let this devolve into a campaign that you are sickened by, that we are sickened by, and that you are embarrassed to be part of. I mean, here is a purely practical reason. The negativity you are spewing now is only going to make your job harder after Election Day. Bipartisanship is really tough to achieve when everyone on both sides is left with a bad, bad taste in their mouth.

Look at this new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll. When asked how are things going in the country today, 80 percent said badly, 80 percent. Pollsters have been asking that question since 1974 -- 80 percent is an all-time low. People want to hear solutions from you. They want to hear how you are going to get us out of this mess. And one of you is going to have to. Don't you want to be able to walk into the White House with your dignity intact and your head held high?

[WATCH.]

I've noted that during debates, ordinary citizens tend to ask questions that eschew the typical idiot obsessions of the professional political press. So Brown may yet get her wish, if whoever selects tonight's questions will allow us the pleasure of something other than a televised geek show. Fingers crossed, Campbell!

Comments

[Shieldmaiden]

Obama only went very negative when he truly had to defend himself. The McCain camp accused him of teaching sex ed to children. LIES. They accused him of getting advice from the former CEO of Freddie Mac. LIES. They accuse him of "palling around with terrorists". LIES. Finally Obama defends himself and he's in the mud? BULL. McCain started this nonsense and only a fool would ignore it. Now that it has been addressed Obama is talking about helping our economy and McCain is still harping on about nonsense. This is after the huge drop in the stock market. How will McCain save our economy? Nobody knows and McCain doesn't care.

[Theresa2]

Plus it is part of the years of experience he touts as why he is more ready than Obama. He can't have it both ways. His senate history is either in or out. If this were a court of law the ruling would be "in" since he himself introduced it as germane to the discussion.

[SisterSoul-08]

Bull! Why ask for it NOW?? McCain has been running negative ads, since the beginning! You all act like Obama isn't supposed to defend himself and fight back! Bologna!

[chitown8]

Preaching to the choir!

Mccain has been negative.

[bpowell1]

I think this is absolutly ridiculous. When this man begins to stand up for himself and fight back now they want to ask him basically to stand down. If the McCain camp can't take the heat stay out of the kitchen. Wait is angering them is that Obama is using actual facts about McCain. He is totally ignoring Palin which exactly what he should do. She is a hateful person. She is not a Christian because a Christian would not incite a crowd to hatered.

[cassidynj]

all this nonsense is destroying the Republican Party as a legitimate political entity. It can go the way of the Whigs if it keeps it up. the cable networks are aiding and abetting so much garbage to keep ratings up.

Is it worth it to them? How disgusting. We are failing as a free country thanks to all of this.

[DrThink]

This is an attempt to discredit Obama's much anticipated and very relevant expose on McCain. This is typical. McCain does something wrong, and CNN desperately seeks a way to pin the wrongdoing on Obama as well. McCain didn't get called out on frequently citing Ayers and Rezko.

It was clear during the primaries that the media outlets turned againset Obama the moment he became a viable candidate and no longer just a new sensation. CNN had re-branded itself as simply, the Clinton News Network. ...and the anti-Obama train has since continued.
Where was Campbell when a few days ago, Mccain promised to throw the kitchen sink and get nasty ? why didn't she decry that?

[jinjinpinti]

You are so right. I watched as two female CNN anchors today made out as though both candidates have been initiating the negative smears when it has clearly been the embattled and disarrayed McCain campaign that have started the mudslinging. CNN= LIARS

[BassMent]

This is just more evidence of how the MSM have been cowed into "fairness" by the GOP. Never mind that the "liberal media" weren't liberal to begin with. Now it is impossible for any news network (other than Fox or MSNBC, which are clearly partisan) to say ANYTHING critical of one candidate without coming up with something critical about the other.

The problem is, no matter the delta between the two candidate's behaviors being criticized, the MSM feels it necessary to level out their offenses in the name of "fairness.­"

So currently, we have one candidate pointing out that his opponent was in fact a major player and guilty party in an economic scandal that resembles in many ways today's credit collapse.

And we have another candidate that calls his opponent "a terrorist's best friend," implies ties to radical Islam, makes thinly disguised racial slurs, implies his opponent is a traitor, and gins up the crowds at rallies to yell "Trason!" "Terrorist!" and even "Kill him!" And none of this is based on any sort of fact or history whatsoever; it's all invective, and it's all invented out of whole cloth.

And to the MSM, THESE THINGS ARE EQUIVALENT. They are both "attacks," and they are the same in kind.

[metivo]

I wish someone would differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate criticisms. Granted, there have been times the Obama campaign has stretched the truth to serve their purposes. For example, when McCain said we could stay in Iraq for 100 years he should be permitted to clarify that as a 'presence' in Iraq (ala Korea) - not combat troops. HOWEVER, in McCain/Palin's negative thrust these past few days, they are spreading LIES along with exaggerations. And stirring up HATRED. Big difference between that and what Obama's campaign has been doing in retalliation.

So, no, I don't think the Obama campaign should ease-up on their counter attack - as long as they're stating true facts. To not is to suggest there's nothing negative to say. Ha!

[jinjinpinti]

The problem with your rationale is that for John MCCain and the neoCON agenda, with the100 years of "presence" in Iraq, he isn't talking about a Walmart Store or a small embassy. He means MILITARY presence, and that, to the M.E. means foreign (read: infidel) troops on their holy soil which is against their ancient religion which they take very seriously and must, as good Muslims, wage jihad against. So the presence of our troops there for, as MCCain said, "one hundred, even a thousand years," is a major irritant and incitement to violence and was the original reason cited by AlQaeda for the 911 attacks.

[americanideal]

Memo to Campbell Brown (whose recent style I admire, by the way...) -

You cannot blame the campaigns for this now. Negative campaigning has proven to be an effective tool in tight political campaigns and is by anyones' standards a potential generator of votes. All campaigns that feel pressure eventually need it, and those that resist it (see Michael Duakakis) get skewered for that choice.

The salient question is "why"? And that's where you come in Campbell..­.

The why is because for over a decade now, the corporate-owned media has silently fanned the flames on this type of dialogue. The all out effort to present "fair and balanced" is actually code for bringing together hyper-partisans from both sides in an "arena" for all to see, to duke it out and label the opposition as ignor ant and out of touch. That slowly breeds contempt, and when these types of campaign maneuvers garner four times the coverage as say - a new health care proposal or a policy speech - then the die is cast.

Campbell, are you at wits end about this? So am I. Now go do what YOU need to do - admonish your network and your peers for buying into it and selling the American public this line of garbage. If/when the media turns the corner on these tactics, America will soon follow...

[ricitizen]

Soup ladies own network said that O is stating the truth.

CNN Truth Squad on Keating Economics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VF1m5-XHvLU

[LAThinker]

McSame/Barbie ticket is heading to a landslide defeat. This is just last desparate attempt to scare American People into voting for them and it will not work

http://www.ucubd.com/Index.aspx?id=795&cid=3160

[barkanomics]

I really haven't seen Obama slinging mud! Where???? How?????? Is amazing to me, the attacks on him from here there and everywhere. He's too nice. He's a push-over. And now, he's too mean. Come on!!! I hope Obama will be Obama. So far I think he's shown Herculean restraint. ..... Bringing up Keating is absolutely pertinent to this election. We're in the same mess. I would like to hear McCain talk about it. WHY was it one of the worst times of his life? Was it because he got caught? What did he learn from it? Perhaps not much, since he's continued with his deregulation mantra until about two weeks ago. When it wasn't playing so well with the public. Keating happened when McCain was United States senator. It's not ancient history.

[timezone]

Obama is elegant, poised, intelligent and can easily stand up to McCain, no matter what low tactics McCain chooses to use. In fact, the lower and more irrelevant McCain chooses to go, the more he defeats his own purpose. I can't wait til tonite!!

[IllinoisTexan43]

Funny how it's only negative when Sen.Obama jumped in. The MSM never calls the republican party on ANYTHING. It will truly be a miracle when Sen. Obama wins. I have NEVER seen a candidate who has faced so many hurdles to the presidency.

[eptech]

Seriously, Kerry ignored the swiftboat ads and what came of that? Nothing good. I hate this brand of politics. It makes me angry because so many people seem to be selling it that people begin to believe as they are woefully uninformed. However, I haven't seen the video, and if the video points out the Keating 5 information factually, then I would have no problem with it. As was said during that investigation, McCain was guilty only of bad judgment. This is fact as far as I know. If that is the case, that he was only found guilty of bad judgment, then he was still guilty of bad judgment, even if nothing else stuck and his judgment is very important, and poor in my opinion in many ways. Again, not having seen the video, I don't know if it's as made up as the things coming from the other side of the election.

[jinjinpinti]

It amounted to just a tad more than "bad judgement" for my former in-laws; hardworking people in Arizona who lost their entire life savings of $50,000 in the Keating, Lincoln Savings and Loan crime and were forced to work until they couldn't anymore and then to live in poverty basically until they died. It was the first time I ever saw a grown man weep like my ex-marine father-in-law sat down and did during that awful personal trajedy to 20,000 Lincoln S&L savers and ultimately to taxpayers everywhere. Oh, I forgot. Years later, they did recoup 10%, giving then back $5,000 for the $50,000 they had worked nearly 50 years to save.

[cdub1991]

Brown--instead of wagging fingers, try talking truth. Obama has struggled to keep the conversation focused on issues and the tone elevated. He's done this to the consternation of his own supporters. And NOW you want to suggest that his campaign is equivalent to McCain's in negativity? That's just not being honest or fair.

Obama will do what is required to win. It's up to McCain/Palin to decide the tone with which the final weeks of the campaign are conducted. If they want to throw down, then the Obama campaign is more than capable of accommodating them. If they want a dignified election, then THEY need to cut the cr*p and start acting like adults.

[Paul Peete - Huffpost Blogger]

This is 21st Century McCarthyism, with a racist twist. Another time it was employed pushed the World into war. The ultra right is in panic and America could escape the judicial stranglehold the Bush Administration enjoyed. Expect the lowest to be forthcoming from their gutter tactical approach.

[pointsofvision]

The republicans are making a big deal out of the fact that Barack Obama had a casual relationship with a guy who is very popular in Chicago social circles who also happen to live in his neighborhood. They served together on the board of the local chapter of the Annenburg foundation ( The same foundation that often sponsors the News Hour on PBS). The guy is a well known education expert in Chicago.
He hosted the first political fundraiser of Obama's carrier for him in 1995. I think that covers the extent of the so called relationship.

Maybe I am being naive here, but how many people hires a private investigator to investigate people they have casual, semi-friendly relationship with? I certainly don't investigate every person I am about to have tea or coffee with.
This character, Bill Ayers was NOT even CHARGED with any crime as a result of the activities of the so called Weathermen. In order words, the fella is NOT even a convicted felon. We are all supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, the government apparently investigated his activities and decided NOT to CHARGE him. is that relevant?

Up until the time the Clinton campaign brought up Bill Ayers, I had never heard of him or the weathermen and I consider myself an history buff and a political junkie.
Is it normal for regular, everyday people to be snooping on any and everybody they come in contact with?

[judyc]

Too late, Campbell--we're already too far into the mud.