I think you addressed the point rather well; people who are likely to notice Democratic campaigns at all are more likely, it seems to me, to think that smear tactics are for jerks. There’s this thing my masscomms professor was talking about, selective processing… The basic idea is that once you have a mindset, you’re more likely only to assimilate that information which already coincides with your mindset. It’s as if the species has this tendency to be blind to opinions that don’t agree with their own, or, in other words, to ignore cognitive dissonance instead of resolving it. So rather than seeing unfair tactics as what they are, some people are busy assimilating the artificial content, to reinforce the existing belief. …suckers.

I think you nailed it on the head; as long as journalism is motivated by the bottom line, it’s going to remain a flawed institution. A press operating in fear and greed is hardly free. So if the media institutions are not accountable to the public beyond the dollar, where’s their impetus to behave honorably? If speaking the truth serves them not, what motivation besides dedication to truth itself impells them? If the media’s purpose is about writing to make the most money, why aren’t they calling it marketing?

Enough yeahyeahs; riddle me this:
How can anger be made into an effective tool for change?
Despair, solving nothing, begs the question; if not despair, then what?
And how?

In short, any news media that reports reality and conducts in-depth analysis will be destroyed if it attempts to operate as a for-profit entity.

Eliminating ethics means you eliminate the entire reason to fight—it’s the same grotesque calculus as torturing for liberation. Smear tactics—such as Edwards’ “CHENEY’S GAY DAUGHTER” display at the VP debates—are usually counter-productive anyways, because it’s a transparent smear when Democrats do it. Republicans, on the other hand, have convinced everyone they are crazy enough to believe the shit they spew.

That said, anger is not a smear tactic.

I’m not sure if the drug itself is what makes the difference, or if it’s more the circumstance… there is a poignant difference between youthful indiscretion and a hard core addiction. Rare indeed are the potheads who will hurt someone to get a fix, but the crazed junkie is common enough that its become a stereotype. Potheads build things; junkies break things.

I must confess a stunning disbelief when I see this kind of thing in action; you are exactly right, it’s as if anything that happened more than two months ago never happened.

So…how do we jog their memories? How do we justify ethics with the need to win? At what point does it become okay for the blue team to play smear tactics like the red team does? Bah.