Contempt, vicious attacks, name-calling. No, it's not playground bullying. It's "grown-ups" embroiled in nasty election politics, as the Obama-Biden-McCain-Palin roadshow screeches to a close.
But if the fighting evokes imagery of children, you have to wonder what kids today are learning from their parents. Are they absorbing the exaggerated levels of enmity we've seen? Or taking things in stride? Are the lessons they're learning different from those of past political struggles?
I grew up in a conservative suburban home in the late fifties and sixties. My strict but loving parents instilled notions of religion, ethics, obedience, good citizenship -- and politics. Early on, I learned right was right and left was wrong.
My parents were active in political campaigns, and Dad spent many hours in meetings and on the phone. Books by J. Edgar Hoover and other conservative icons lined the walls of his study.
In school we wore dog tags, practiced air-raid drills, and heard warnings about Communism.
A TV commercial echoed the theme - showing suburban houses as an ominous voice intoned, "An innocent-looking neighborhood. But your next-door neighbor could be a Communist." It cut to a speaker warning a worried crowd about danger to America. They stood as the voiceover urged, "Stand up in the fight against Communism."
Today, terrorism is portrayed as a more potent threat, with the Communist label used more often as a political insult.
My political activism began early: pulling a red wagon through the neighborhood, placing flyers on doors. Of course, Kennedy's election in 1960 was a huge disappointment. But Dad consoled us the next morning. "Well," he said, "they can always impeach him."
As it turned out, they didn't need to. His 1963 assassination still evokes emotions. But the following day, my elementary school teacher was visibly changed. In a voice I didn't recognize, she told the class, "Yesterday the president was killed. And do you know what I heard one boy say?" We waited silently as her face contorted. "He said 'Goody!'"
That memory rushed back when Palin mentioned Obama at her rally, and a supporter yelled, "Kill him!" I wondered if any children had heard that outburst, and whether their parents or teachers had condemned it -- or remained silent.
But back in 1964, my family's hopes rose when Goldwater was nominated. Here was a true conservative we would help elect in any way we could. In addition to conventional political work my brother and I removed offensive Johnson bumper stickers and signs.
That election too ended in defeat, but our 1966 summer vacation in Los Angeles was a kid's fantasy: Disneyland, Universal Studios, the beach. Notably, my parents were keen to visit Knott's Berry Farm. We kids were unimpressed. "We've picked berries before. What's so great about that?" But our folks prevailed -- and we were glad to discover how many amusement rides there were.
In high school, antiwar sentiment was rampant among outspoken students. But I read my father's books and maintained a conservative view. To the literary magazine I contributed anti-anti-war poetry.
In college I joined the Young Republicans Club, marched on the ROTC drill team, and bristled when a professor disparaged Billy Graham.
But by junior year my views began to broaden. I listened to differing points of view. I subscribed to both the Wall Street Journal and a leftist rag. I learned to tolerate and respect people who looked, acted, and thought differently.
I'd come a long way by the time I met my future wife Alison in Los Angeles. We marveled at our politically opposite childhoods. Her mother was a deputy mayor for Tom Bradley, and her father had her walk picket lines, attend antiwar rallies, and march with Cesar Chavez.
Contrasting with my enjoyment of Knott's, Alison as a girl had been forbidden to visit because, her father said, "It's owned by Birchers." And the ultraconservative John Birch Society was anathema to him.
When we married, we conspired to keep our fathers from meeting during the reception; we loved them too much to risk a verbal confrontation -- or worse -- if they discovered that my father was addicted to Fox News, while hers craved socialist newspapers.
Alison and I survived our political upbringings. I've learned through the years that we're all in this together. And that the eagle needs both a right wing and left wing to fly.
What lessons will the children of 2008 carry with them? Will they learn to fight -- or to work together?
"Teach your children well," and maybe we can put this partisan bickering and these shameful dirty tricks behind us in the future, because regardless of how you feel about Barack Obama, I'm sure you can agree with this very simple statement: "There is not a liberal America, and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America."