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

[2belinda]

When MCain is angry he often flicks the tip of his tongue out when speaking and if he is seated, he rears back in his seat and hitches up his pants. He is truly one scary person.

[DrThink]

interesting!

[jjoshaugh]

That tongue habit could just be him adjusting false teeth. I don't see it as anything to take too much notice of.

[veteran1964]

That is why we call him the OLD LIZARD' Tongue out catch a fly.

[timezone]

I hope once the elections are over, we can all stand united to fix the major problems we face: the economy, unemployment, health care, Iraq, energy, the environment. Divided We Fall is still true. I'm sad McCain and Palin chose to try to divide and conquer, rather than unite and succeed.

[pfc1369]

Lofty sentiment, but consider:

What evidence is there in this country that there is any longer a "WE"?

[timezone]

If there is no longer a "WE", where does that leave "US"? I think it's time for lofty sentiments and actions. On a very practical note, if "we" DON'T decide to try to work together on our problems, "we" will surely all fail together. Conflict, fear, hatred have all brought countries down before.

[timezone]

The "evidence" there is still a "we"? Look at the posts on this website.....

[Ohg]

Watch McCain closely - when he is backed into a corner he acts like other mammals, we will not mention rats, when in trouble. McCain is combative by nature and being in the corner is when he is most dangerous. If elected, he will apply this emotional rationale to foreign policy. ..........­..........­........
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/10/07/john-mccain-and-coercive-diplomacy/

[chubbydogwalker]

Someone said he'll be Bush on steroid. And he said the president has power to pen the 700 billion bailout, don't need the congress's vote. And he's got a short temper. It's dangerous.

[Myshkin57]

The Keating Five stuff isn't germane? It may not be central, but it's certainly germane. McCain was involved in the last big banking crisis. Isn't that relevant to deciding to who has better judgment regarding the current financial crisis? I agree that something from 20 years ago may be something Senator McCain learned from, but you can't keep going to the POW well and complain that something happened too long ago to be relevant.

[BluebirdofUnhappiness]

Maybe one of the tr0llies could explain why Ayers is relavent..? I can't figure it out. Tho like Myshkin I can see a Keating 5 connectio to current events.

[jinjinpinti]

Nope. Tr0llz can't 'splain squat, Just ask them how their two votes each for the Bush/Cheney abomination in 2000, and 2004 is working out for them now. All you will hear is the soft sniffling of fools who sold us down the river and are now afraid to even open the envelope that arrived detailing the losses they just took in their 401k plans and portfolios.

[AZterritory]

About 20,000 Arizonans can tell you why the Keating 5 is still relevant! He did NOTHING to regulate after that debacle, it is TOTALLY relevant.

[jinjinpinti]

Yup. Though I was just a young wife at the time, I can still recall the anguish in my in-laws life in Phoenix, Az as they watched their entire life savings lost to the Keating/Lincoln S&L crime. They'd previously voted for McCain, but were so convinced of his culpability in their loss, due partly to all the socializing and partying by the McCains on yatchs with Keating in the Bahamas and his advocating for Keating against regulations, that his name became toxic in their home. Their lives were irrevocably damaged and they ended up old and poor in a mobile home, but john McCain went on to own 7 homes and 13 cars. Hmmm.

[chubbydogwalker]

And Ayre is 40 years ago when Obama was 8.
The key here is McCain was the center of Keating 5, and he hasn't showed he had learned or changed anything yet. His top adviser Phil Gramm was the Chair of Senate Committee that deregulated and had direct impact of today's crisis. He was bypassed by Bush 41 as VP candidate because of this scandal. We don't always want to look back, but sometimes we just have to. The risk is too high.

[Taajq]

Campbell Brown where is your integrity. Parity or Honesty?

[caterpol]

Every time McCain makes up some new lie to smear Obama, the media's all over it. Discussing it's merits at length, debating endlessly whether there could be something to it....RATHER THAN dIsmissing it for what it is. A desperate attempt to change the subject.

So yeah, Campbell, gutter politics don't work, huh? The MSM ENABLES gutter politics!

[Palmz]

Bingo!

I am still waiting for them to ask Sarah/ McCain about this comment from someone near and dear to them:

"The fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government."
-AIP, our mission is to break away from the evil empire.

Who is sleeping with the enemy?

[americanideal]

I agree. This is some fairly weak "grandstanding" by the very institution that should be admonished for fanning the flames in the first place.

CNN is notorious for it, for example. If a campaign merely states something, they runn with it even when it's credibility has been debunked, hiding behind the production of "equal sides" to an argument. Of course, these hyper-partisans ultimately end up being just as combative and robotic in their passion for their view, and their disdain for the "opposition". We, the American viewer, get short-changed, for in the end, we "learn" nothing more than opinions and conjecture.

How sad it's become. I encourage Ms. Brown to lead the charge against her own to put an end to it...

[Indie2008]

Exactly! This proves that the MSM tolerates hate and racism when it suits their purpose for creating controversy. Remember their universal "Outrage"- ("Horrendous, horrendous remarks", one anchor said ) when Don Imus made a stupid attempt at racial humor? Yet this incenderary hate speech is treated by the media as just politics as usual.

[IllinoisTexan43]

I wholeheartedly second that! The MSM is complicit with the republican agenda.

[SwingVoter]

Pattern of corruption.

John McCain is corrupt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r-kOIs-W6E

John McCain is corrupt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDofbll86dY

[lioness39]

Campbell, you are too late with that admonishment. Palin and Mac have already lowered their campaign to minus gutter level.

[rgersmrk]

I would applaud Ms. Brown's efforts in her column. Unfortunately she is just as culpable as any other media figure for taking the low road and reporting the negative campaigning ad nauseum. My hope is if she really wants things to get better that she refuses to report on the negative campaigning and talk about something more pertinent to Americans, like say the economy.

Just say, tonight's political news has garbage, onto real news.

[caterpol]

When you accuse your opponent of being a terrorist and infer that he's guilty of treason, you're involved in gutter politics. That's pure character asassination. Non-fact based innuendo in a desperate and ADDMITTED attempt to change the subject from the economy.

When you remind the voting public that John McCain WAS one of the Keating Five, apologies not withstanding, that cost the tax payers billions of dollars and wiped out the savings of seniors et al, how is that character assassination? It's fact-based. It's verifiably true. And it's on topic.

Big difference Campbell Brown.

[demfriend]

Campbell you need your head and IQ amount adjusted. I have lost the little respect I thought I held for you and your desire for the truth and a clean campaign. All lies or you would be seeing what the rest of us are. People either on their own or paid/encouraged by the McCain campaign are yelling "terrorist" "kill Him" and more being just the samples and the begining of this terroist attack by the campaign on Obama and us. If you pay attentin at all these people have bailed on issues and attacks and lies are the game plan. Then the "surrogates get on shows like yours and speak about things like the truth has yet to be uncovered when you and the rest of MSM and these "surrogates" know full well that if there was anything, anything there for aomeone to uncover about Obama there has been major bucks spent to do just that. So go back in your hole and look at the reality of people who would rather instill fear of a gentle good man rather than attempt to get things done with our economy and the extreme problems coming at us daily.

[LucieLee]

Campbell...I love you.....You are trying so hard to be so non-partisan, but McCain and Palin have have crossed the line when it comes to trying to be civil...they have done this....and all us Obama supporters would have been trying to shake some sense into the candidate to get after it!!! I'm clad he brought up keating in that documentary on the web and I hop tonight during the debate he confronts McCain and makes the public know exactly what McCain's nastiness is all about! To McCain....if you play with fire you are going to get burned!!

[Banji81]

I guess Campbell Brown's on a roll now, huh? Please, quit the 'olbermanning' while you are ahead , Campbell; just report the news.

[alexis d]

This scumminess IS the news.

[americanideal]

No Alexis, it really isn't.

It is because the media says it is. The surest way to dampen its effectiveness, and wipe it away from the face of our political arena, is to have the media expose it for what it is, and then ignore it.

If you limit it to 10,000 at a Florida rally, half of them will eat it up, but many others will walk away disappointed, and honestly concerned. I've been to a negative rally where my guy went negative. It wasn't pleasant. I didn't love it, and honestly, it made me question the whole process. You do that enough times, and this tactic's effectiveness wanes quickly.

However, when it becomes a soundbite for millions, and prompts a "debate" that lasts for days, it's done its job. You can't get 1,000,000 to a rally (usually), and you can't buy that kind of exposure. In essence, the "news" media is rendered another form of political advertising -- which is ultimately ANYTHING but news.

Not good for us, but the messenger here is the cause. She can take the first steps...

[abigail1]

To compare Sarah Palin and John McCain's attacks to the Obama campaign bringing up the Keating 5 is silly and a perfect example of false parity.
The Keating 5 scandal became relevant because of the bailout, it is as much about McCain's approach to the economy as it is McCain's lack of ethics.
What exactly is the whole Ayers nonsense about? What issue facing the country does it relate to? Are we still fighting the Vietnam war? Is Ayers sill plotting to blow up the capital? Because I thought he was a professor now who does a lot of charity work in order to improve education for children. What wrong doing was Barack Obama accused of that relates to Ayers? What?

[Theresa2]

As for walking in the White House with dignity and head held high, how can you media folks go to with pride? You are dropping the ball big time and we are the big losers.