Campaign Mud-Wrestling

The presidential campaign is beginning to get a little interesting. Polls say it's close, so each side is starting to fight dirty.

You see more silly fact-twisting and mud wrestling. Both sides take a truth, chop off the parts that don't support their side, and then loudly claim something that isn't the whole truth.

I suppose there are tons of average Americans who don't recognize misleading political ads as manipulative and sleazy. But there are lots of folks who see these campaign tactics for what they really are. They grow skeptical, to a point of believing almost nothing at all— whether it's the truth or not.

Some decide all the candidates are pretty much alike, and voting is a waste of time and effort, and then they don't bother.

All this misleading, half-truth propaganda that passes for campaign advertising has the longterm effect of damaging our political system. The politicians who deliberately mislead and lie in their ads are power hungry and whole-hog selfish. They give us mud wrestling, dirty pool and spin, when all we really want is the simple truth.

Brad Messer, commentary, KTSA.