An Analysis of Liberal Slanting of Federal Spending From the Pages of The WSJ

I generally like the Wall Street Journal immensely. As an American daily business newspaper, it has no peer. It's editorial page, while tilting right, is fair and fact-based.

With Al Hunt's departure some years ago, the editorial page lost its last shred of liberal-leaning nuttiness. Not so the news pages, though.

To demonstrate this, let's consider the recent article, entitled "Legacy of Deficits Will Constrain Bush's Successor," from Friday's Journal, written by Michael Phillips and John McKinnon. It's a textbook case in how the use of suggestive, biased adjectives, selective data and judiciously dressed-up contradictory facts can be used to lead a reader to a totally erroneous conclusion.

To begin with, you need to remember something that occurred in my own youth. It's the impoundment issue. A Time magazine article of the era, found here, nicely summarizes the issue,

"Faced with what he considered a profligate Congress, Richard Nixon transformed an occasional practice of former Presidents into a tactic of confrontation. Claiming he had a presidential right of impoundment, Nixon simply refused to spend at least $16 billion appropriated by Congress for a variety of projects. In 1973 the Supreme Court, aware that it might soon face more serious tests of presidential power, ducked the issue. Last week, with those problems behind them, the Justices turned to an impoundment-related suit and by a 9-to-0 vote delivered one more resounding no to the Nixon doctrine of Executive power.

The case involved Nixon's decision to spend no more than $5 billion of the $11 billion that Congress had appropriated, over his veto, for water-pollution control. Although the court stuck strictly to the language of the pollution law and avoided any sorting of federal powers, Justice Byron White's opinion bluntly agreed with the plaintiff, New York City, that "the act does not permit such action" by any President.

That should just about end the confrontation; Congress last year passed a law eliminating any future Nixon-style impoundment. Under the new law, the President must get the approval of a majority of Congress if he wishes to withhold any authorized funds. He may delay the spending—but only if he tells Congress, and if a majority of either House does not vote against the delay."

This is important, because it plants the stake in the ground at 1973-74 for the last time a President was truly responsible for Federal spending. And I mean either party. For the last 35 years, Congress has been the budget-busting branch of the US Government, not the Executive.

So, on to the Journal article.

The authors begin with these paragraphs, which read like they were meant for a similar article in the People's Daily, a/k/a The New York Times,

"George W. Bush took office in 2001 with budget surpluses projected to stretch years into the future. But it's almost certain that when he returns to Texas next year, the president will leave behind a trail of deficits and debt that will sharply constrain his successor.

On Monday, the president will unveil a $3 trillion-plus budget request for his final year, which is likely to show a deficit of more than $400 billion. New details of the budget emerged yesterday, with officials saying the White House plans to keep a lid on nonsecurity discretionary spending. It wants to cut about $200 billion from the government's medical programs for seniors and the poor."

Read on its own, the passages has you forgetting we're in a shooting war in two countries, and the overall Federal deficit has, in fact, been shrinking under President Bush. Because the authors use 'projected' budget surpluses, they easily suggest Bush has been profligate.

Next, the authors write,

"The longer-term picture is darker. Despite his efforts, Mr. Bush failed to work out a deal with Congress to tackle the spiraling costs of government health and retirement programs."

See how perspective poisons the message? The same reality could have been written thusly,

"The longer term picture is darker. Despite their efforts, members of Congress failed to work out a deal with President Bush to tackle the spiraling costs of government health and retirement programs,"

implying, correctly, that Congress, with the power of the purse, chose to ignore the looming fiscal debacle. Instead, by cleverly transposing terms, Phillips and McKinnon place blame on Bush, who has no budgetary authority.

With me so far? Good. Let's move further into this attack piece on Bush. The next passage I'll cite reads,

"The president's critics say his failings are twofold: He has squandered surpluses that could have helped pay down the $5 trillion federal debt. And he has let two terms pass without persuading Congress to take action that would preserve the government's social programs."

But how can a President, without the power of impoundment, squander anything? And, once again, the authors phrase the Federal impasse on spending programs as if it's purely Bush's fault, because he didn't persuade Congress. Congress writes the laws. Isn't it Congress' job to persuade the President to sign their bills?

Then the article's authors surprise us with this candid bit of Bush defense,

"Mr. Bush's defenders say he did the best he could in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, and that he has recently tightened up on spending. The budget deficit in fiscal 2004 measured 3.6% of gross domestic product; last year it narrowed to 1.2% of GDP, low by historical standards. The deficit is expected to rise to 2.5% of GDP, or about $350 billion, this fiscal year, assuming Congress passes an expected economic-stimulus package.

"You could say, 'Gee, he inherited surpluses and now we have a deficit,'" said Rob Portman, the former head of the White House budget office under Mr. Bush. "On the other hand, you could say he inherited a recession" in 2001. Mr. Portman called the country's fiscal health "relatively strong" and said the president has left a solid base for "the next president and the next Congress to deal with the real problem, which is the unsustainable growth in mandatory spending." "

Enjoy it. Savor it. 'Cause it's all you're going to get. Next, they state,

"When Mr. Bush took the oath of office in 2001, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected $5.6 trillion in federal budget surpluses through 2011. Through most of his tenure, the president managed to have his guns, butter and tax cuts without creating enormous budget deficits, at least as measured by their share of GDP. One reason was a surprise increase in federal tax receipts from corporations over the last couple of years. Now those revenues have flattened out and the economy is teetering on the edge of recession."

First, it's laughable to call the CBO nonpartisan. It's been left-leaning for as long as I've been old enough to vote. Even under Reagan, conservatives chafed that he wouldn't cashier the head of it, in order to force the introduction of 'dynamic scoring.' The CBO, in case you don't know, continues to use 'static scoring' to 'evaluate' the effects of various taxation and spending proposals on the Federal budget and deficit. By refusing to use dynamic scoring on tax proposals, the CBO indicates that it believes that changes in taxation policy has no effect on how people behave economically.

This is preposterous. The effects of the Reagan-era tax cuts, and Bush's more recent ones, solidly demonstrate that people do react to lower tax rates, earning more, creating more value and, consequentially, more tax revenue for the Federal Treasury.

That, by the way, is the source of the 'surprise increase in Federal tax receipts' of which Messrs. Phillips and McKinnon blithely write. So if the increase was a "surprise," doesn't that suggest the CBO doesn't do its job very well? And perhaps mandates for dynamic scoring?

"Mr. Bush and Congress, meanwhile, increased federal spending by 25% between 2001 and 2007, adjusted for inflation, according to Brian Riedl of the conservative Heritage Foundation. By Sept. 30, the U.S. will have spent almost $800 billion on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. A new Medicare prescription-drug benefit for seniors costs almost $80 billion a year. Mr. Bush's signature tax cuts, in 2001 and 2003, sapped tax receipts and sliced the projected budget surplus by about $1.7 trillion through 2011, according to the CBO."

This passage, as prior ones, again features inaccurate and biasing wordsmithing. Congress, not "Mr. Bush and Congress," increased federal spending. Remember impoundment?

Then the authors turn to fixing Social Security. Here's how they tar Bush on this issue. An issue, by the way, that only President Bush, among our recent Federal leaders, has had the courage to raise and for which he's offered a solution,

"Mr. Bush came into office in 2001 vowing to save Social Security from financial ruin. "My opponent completely ignores the long-term problems of Social Security," he said of Democratic nominee Al Gore during a New Mexico campaign stop in the waning days of the 2000 campaign. Eventually, the retirement bills for baby boomers would come due, he warned. "And our children and grandchildren will pay them with massive new taxes."

In 2005, Mr. Bush tried to tackle Social Security, on the theory that it should be easier to fix than Medicare. The latter is more expensive, and salvaging it would require the government to find a way to stem rising medical costs.

Mr. Bush approached the subject from a free-market point of view, calling on Congress to divert some of the Social Security payroll tax into individual investment accounts. Many Democrats and seniors saw it as an attempt to kill the program rather than fix it.

"The president put a proposal on the table, and I think he gets credit for that," says Alice Rivlin, President Clinton's budget director and a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve. "But he wasn't willing to negotiate with the Congress to make it a serious proposal that both sides could accept. And Congress wasn't ready to negotiate." "

This is rich! The authors quote Alice Rivlin, a decidedly liberal politico and demagogue, Clinton appointee, as the source by which to find Bush guilty of not being 'willing to negotiate with the Congress to make it a serious proposal that both sides would accept.'

Again, they could have written, just as validly,

"But Congress wasn't willing to negotiate with the President to make it a serious proposal that both sides could accept. And Bush wasn't ready to negotiate."

Then we have this baldfaced assertion,

"Last year, Mr. Bush asked Congress to slow the rate of growth of Medicare spending, aiming to cut $8 trillion from the program's $34 trillion unfunded obligations over the next 75 years. But the president couldn't win congressional support."

Which is roughly equivalent to having written this, instead,

"Last year, Mr. Bush asked Congress to slow the rate of growth of Medicare spending, aiming to cut $8 trillion from the program's $34 trillion unfunded obligations over the next 75 years.

But Congress, always spending like a drunken sailor, refused to see the common sense of this proposal. Thus, with Congress' spending making drunken sailors look prudent by comparison, and the legislative branch's refusal to even consider trimming this profilgate spending, the president couldn't win congressional support."

The rest of the article deals with the alleged fiscal straitjacket which the authors contend President Bush will hand his successor.

I don't think so.

All you have to do is refresh your memory, or, if too young for that, learn about the 1970s impoundment issue, to see where the truth in this whole affair lies. It's Congress' 'legacy of deficits,' not any President's.

Blame both parties, in proportion to the years they led and corresponding runup in the country's deficit. Except, note that, with Bush in office, the Republican-controlled Congress did something Democrats rarely did in their years in power in Congress from the New Deal until the Gingrich era- shrink the Federal deficit.

It's pretty sad when the Wall Street Journal's staff writers, in this case, Messrs. Phillips and McKinnon, can't get basic facts straight. Facts I confirmed via Google in about 3 minutes.

How do we get such liberal, left-biased writing as 'news' in the Wall Street Journal? Will Rupert be fixing this?

Another Presidential Election Molded by Our Nations' Fringe Elements

I was speaking with a friend last night, as we watched the Florida primary results.

Now, less than a month into 2008, each party's race is down to only two contenders. As a New Jersey resident, once again, most of my choices have been taken away from my by a weird fringe element of other US voters.

Why religious-oriented hayseeds and ethanol-barons from Iowa? Why one of the smallest, by population, states in the union, New Hampshire? A state, much of whose income is derived by residents who work in a neighboring state.

Michigan? A once-great, now threadbare state of auto workers looking for aid from the other 49?.

South Carolina? What's so special about that state? More religiosity, distinctly regional cultural values, and probably not a representative ethnic mix.

Florida? C'mon. Retiree-loaded, as well as heavily populated with ex- and current military personnel.

In truth, what state or states are appropriate as early primary states? None.

My friend and I bemoaned that, while living in a heavily-populated state, we've been disenfranchised by some extremists in states we rarely even visit. I don't think we even get in on "super Tuesday." Maybe the second one- I don't really even know. Or care, now.

In fact, here's some statistics to ponder. From the 2000 US Census, which listed US total population as 281 million,

Iowa 3MM
NH 1
Michigan 10
South Carolina 4
Florida 16
Total 34 million

That means five states, with a total of just 12% of our total population, are responsible for eliminating some 60% of each party's Presidential hopefuls.

How is this fair to anyone? To candidates, or voters? It means 88 out of every 100 voters don't get to choose from the original, declared full slate of their party's Presidential candidates in each election.

Isn't it time both parties moved to a single-day, omni-state primary system? What the hell is so special about Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina? Aren't the first two now simply using the quadrennial election as an excuse to boost their economies?

Let's be fair and strip them of this baseless privilege. Let's push our parties to simply designate one, nation-wide primary day. Just like the first Tuesday of every fourth November is the single date for our country's general elections for President.

Instead of silly media-stoked 'momentum' plays by candidates, they'd actually have to disseminate their single, unchanged positions and characteristics to voters for a single date of destiny.

Makes quite a bit more sense to me than the current system, in which we allow a few self-anointed, extreme bellwethers to dictate to the rest of us what candidates among whom we may choose for our party's Presidential nomination.

The Kennedys' Endorsement

In what has to be, to a non-Democrat, a ludicrous spectacle, Democratic Senator, corrupting influence, self-parody and untried accessory to a killing, Ted Kennedy, endorsed Obama Bim Baden today.

The Tedster's looking typically corpulent and out of place/touch these days. Skipping the eight successful years of the Reagan era, Tedster opined that Obama is the most impressive politician, or somesuch, since the late President Kennedy.

Then we have John Kennedy's nephew and daughter weighing in.

Who cares?

"My dad was President, and he got shot.
That's why my endorsement means a lot"

Please.

What would Caroline or Patrick Kennedy know about the late President?

That he regularly cavorted with women in the White House pool while Jackie was away? That his father made arrangements with the Mafia to win Illinois for Jack?

That he and his brother shared women, while married, including Marilyn Monroe and Sam Giancana's mistress?

But let's review Kennedy's actual, if brief, record in office.

He green-lighted the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. Then his Dr. Feelgood got him too buzzed on meds and Nikita Krushev took his measure and decided he could be pushed around.

The result was the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which Kennedy narrowly avoided our first nuclear exchange.

Then there was the time he broke the steelworkers' strike. Good union man, Jack.

And what about sending advisors to Vietnam, in America's interests?

The only lasting, positive contribution Kennedy made was his tax cuts.

Funny thing. If you review Jack Kennedy's record, you get the feeling that, were he President today, Obama would be criticizing nearly everything he did.

In fact, Kennedy was very similar to George W. Bush- tax cutter and taking action abroad to protect American interests.

So it's richly ironic that red-faced, fat Teddy Kennedy, along with his niece and nephew, endorse a candidate who eschews almost everything John Kennedy did. In fact, John Kennedy was what today would be a centrist- to right-leaning Democrat, putting Hillary on his left. Obama wouldn't even come close to agreeing with him on anything.

Instead, the most liberal wing of the Kennedy family endorses Obama, and pretends it's like an endorsement from the grave by JFK.

Far from being a "uniter," Obama, if elected, is likely to be the most divisive President since Lincoln. A glib tongue and nicely-tailored suit doesn't qualify someone to be President, even if it makes them more pleasant to whom to listen as they campaign for the office.

Presidential Campaign Withdrawals- Recent and Imminent

A lot has occurred since my post after the New Hampshire primaries on January 9th.


Mitt Romney has evened things up with his Michigan win. The Democratic race is still wide open.

On the Republican side, Fred Thompson withdrew from the nomination race. While I personally like Thompson and agree with many of his positions, I didn't really think he could win. His debate performances were too slow and lackluster, until the very end.

Next up, I believe, will be Giuliani. He's running way behind McCain and Romney in Florida, the avowed opening of his serious campaign. Say what you will about his campaign strategy or qualifications, he just doesn't seem to be likely to get traction now.

I'd guess Hickabee is next. He isn't really running in Florida, and he's got nearly zero organization and funding for Super Tuesday.

So it's going to be down to McCain and Romney very soon.

On the Democratic side, Dennis 'the menace' (yes, that really was his old nickname) Kucinich finally pulled the plug. Gone, too, are Dodd and Biden.

After his third place in South Carolina, his home state, Edwards should be dropping out soon. The brawl that is now the Democratic race doesn't really have room for a third pugilist.

So the highly-probable match-ups for November are now clearing appearing. Candidates will now more likely be evaluated for their ability to win against known opponents, as well as their positions and records.

Obama Runs From His On-Air Statements

So much for the courage of his convictions. Obama is in full retreat from some of his recent on-air comments.

The other morning, he was interviewed on CNBC. In the space of just a few minutes, he managed to backtrack on lauding Reagan as a transformational President.

Originally, he hailed Reagan as a "transformational President." Now, he says he really meant it derogatorily, observing that Reagan

'got blue collar voters to vote against their own interests,'

or something close to that terminology.

Then he was asked about his accusation of Bill Clinton being a liar. Again, originally, Obama was quite forceful claiming that Slick Willie is not telling the truth in statements he's made about Obama.

Under close examination, however, the novice Illinois Senator backpedaled at lightspeed, giving Bill a plea bargain down to something like 'getting his facts wrong,' and giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Then he recently backed away from his generic, demonizing statements about corporations when being questioned by Jack Welch on CNBC. Obama is all fire and brimstone about how bad big corporations and their workers are.

When Welch challenged him to offer something to employed workers with benefits, Obama declined. But claimed he knew the value of having functioning, profitable companies. Once again, he backed away quickly from his campaign rhetoric.

Peggy Noonan, in this weekend's Wall Street Journal, calls Obama "accomplished," with which statement I vociferously disagree.

However, I am in agreement when she observes that he never really goes for the jugular. He faints at striking back, then stops. It seems he's the same way when fighting back against accusations.

Perhaps this trait will either ultimately sink Obama in his bid for his party's nomination, or cause him to lose the general election.

It very much reminds me of a 1964 Henry Fonda movie concerning a race for the White House. Entitled "The Best Man," with a Gore Vidal screenplay, it revolves around Fonda's inability to use every means at his disposal to win his party's nomination. Being by Gore Vidal, it turns on homosexuality. Cliff Robertson's character, a rival for the nomination, is learned to be homosexual, and Fonda must use it to crush Robertson. If memory serves, he doesn't.

It seems that Obama is similar to Fonda's character. He just can't pull the trigger and be honest about his criticisms of his opponents. When confronted by the media, he inevitably pulls back and goes into denial mode.

Who wants, or needs a President with this characteristic. We need someone who will be truthful and willing to stand behind what s/he says.

Evidently, that's not Obama. Or Hillary, either, for that matter.

Slick Willie Demonstrates Why We Distrust Politicians

In a shocking display of ill-gotten gains, the Wall Street Journal ran an article yesterday detailing Bill Clinton's looming multi-million dollar payoff from being President.

This is the sort of post-office holding development that enrages voters. Or at least it enrages me. Bill Clinton would have none of this, had he not been elected President. In fact, as the article notes, much of his wealth actually resulted from political favor-seekers helping him to raise money to pay his impeachment-related legal bills.

It's ironic, of course, that Slick Willie is now the type of corporate fat cat that his 'partner,' Hillary, would soak with her tax hike plans.

According to the article,

"Former President Clinton stands to reap around $20 million -- and will sever a politically sensitive partnership tie to Dubai -- by ending his high-profile business relationship with the investment firm of billionaire friend Ron Burkle.

The former president has had links to Yucaipa since early 2002, when Mr. Burkle -- a longtime friend and political contributor -- offered him a role there. Mr. Clinton's association with the firm began at a time when he was looking to earn large amounts of money, partly to pay heavy legal bills accumulated to defend himself and Mrs. Clinton from several investigations during his presidency.

Profits from the sales helped to push the funds above the earnings threshold needed to generate a multimillion-dollar payday for the former president, according to public documents related to the sales and other information.

The deals were announced in February and March 2007, respectively -- around the time Mr. Clinton's involvement as an adviser to the domestic funds was set to expire. By not closing out his Yucaipa relationship before those sales were completed, President Clinton probably increased the amount of money ultimately due him, say people familiar with such transactions."

Thus, we see that Slick Willie gained access to tens of millions of dollars of profits from 'unearned' income that most of those who voted for him could never achieve. More than any other former President, the former First Philanderer has traded on his term of office to make a fortune. While his wife, a Senator, rails against....exactly what he is doing.

The Yucaipa connection became public recently, as I noted in this post from last September.

Then we have the incredibly rich irony described in this passage,

"Mr. Clinton is also looking to close out partnership interests in a Yucaipa fund that focuses on investing in foreign companies. This fund -- called Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund LP -- has raised several hundred million dollars from a range of investors. Unlike his deal to advise the two Yucaipa domestic funds, Mr. Clinton invested an undisclosed sum of his own money in the global fund and has a limited partnership interest.

Mr. Clinton is also one of three owners of the global fund's general partner. The others are Mr. Burkle, who is the managing member, and an entity connected to the ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.

Severing the tie to Dubai, a U.S. ally, will remove a potentially tricky problem for Mrs. Clinton. Questions raised about the activities of sovereign wealth funds -- giant pools of money controlled by foreign governments -- have become a campaign issue, as the funds have made a spate of multibillion-dollar investments in such corporate giants as Citigroup Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mrs. Clinton said such purchases are "a source of concern," partly because the foreign funds "lack transparency" and could be used by foreign governments as "instruments of foreign policy." "

So here we see Bill making hay while the sun shone, with his Dubai partners. Then, as soon as his wife's bid for the Presidency made that investment questionable, he dumped it- but not the profit, of course.

This way, Hillary has her funding, and the contradictory, hypocritical political position, too.

What, precisely, did Slick Willie do for Burkle that allowed him to earn- and I use the term incredibly loosely- all that money? The Journal piece states,

"Mr. Clinton's duties and activities as a Yucaipa adviser have never been completely clear to outsiders. He has met at times with people involved in various Yucaipa business deals. And the former president's vast global network of contacts probably has been an asset for Mr. Burkle in dealings with business, labor and political leaders. Over the years, Mr. Burkle has said publicly that Mr. Clinton's prestige and connections have helped Yucaipa get its business proposals in front of top corporate decision makers.

Asked about the unwinding of the Yucaipa relationship, a spokesman for Mr. Clinton said the former president "is taking steps to ensure" that there will be "an appropriate transition" for the business relationship should Mrs. Clinton win the Democratic presidential nomination.

The spokesman added it isn't yet known how much Mr. Clinton will receive from his involvement in Yucaipa. A Yucaipa spokesman declined to comment on the firm's relationship with Mr. Clinton.

As part of the effort to sever financial connections that could complicate Mrs. Clinton's presidential bid, the couple in June disclosed that they had sold millions of dollars worth of stock in public companies and put the funds in cash accounts."

Before reading this article, I thought John Edwards' working at the hedge fund Fortress, described here, was the height of hypocrisy.

I was wrong.

Slick Willie has sold his status as ex-President for something north of $20MM. Not content to have stained the office while actually holding it, he now continues to dishonor it by brazenly turning it into cash. Reading Burkle's contention that just by having Slick Willie's name associated with business proposals, they get attention, confirms that the former President is 'doing' nothing for the millions he is paid by Yucaipa.

While masquerading as a champion of the poor and disenfranchised, the Slick One from Arkansas has managed to monetize all those millions of votes from his two Presidential election.

Disgusting. Just stomach-turning. It's exactly why voters in America have become so jaded by the political, governing class. Nothing is ever done out of a public service ethic. There's always a payday around the corner from every public office held.

I shudder to think of what the Billary could concoct, should she actually be elected to even one term in the Oval Office.

What The People Want

I happened to see some clips last night from the recent Democratic debate in which Hillary and Obama savaged each other.

It was great television. The two sparred like alley cats. Obama tossed out barbs about not knowing which Clinton he's running against. As well as reminding everyone that Hillary was, for the most part, just a lawyer in Arkansas who happened to be on the Wal-Mart board.

Hillary, for her part, shown a spotlight on Obama's many 'present' votes in the Illinois Senate, as well as his involvement with a Chicago slumlord now under indictment.

What was really entertaining, though, was watching two Democrats, a self-styled female 'strategist' whose name I can't recall, and NPR/Fox News pundit Juan Williams, go at it on Bill O'Reilly's program about the clips and catfight.

The woman called it mudslinging, and said that Obama won, because he got Hillary down in the mud, where only Bill, her husband, is supposed to be.

Juan Williams claimed that Obama lost, because he got dirty, when his overall message is supposed to be about positive, sparkly-white change.

Williams inadvertently tipped his loyalties when he used a word like 'unfortunately' or 'regrettably,' to describe Obama's mistake. O'Reilly pounced on this immediately, but Williams was backtracking at warp speed. Not credibly, mind you, but he tried to gracefully extricate himself from the very partisan gaffe.

That said, the woman decried this 'mudslinging,' saying that voters don't want this.

Actually, I think we do. We love it. It's the very bone and sinew of American politics, and, Goddammit, it's our right to see it on display every four years.

In fact, it's gotten better during this election cycle. With these overly-ambitious egotists out running for President a full year earlier than last time, voters get a thorough look at them for much longer than we've been able to in the past.

With the internet, blogs, and YouTube, no gaffe goes away. No errant, honest admission dies silently. It's available on YouTube forever.

I think we all want to know about Hillary's taking Wal-Mart money then, and now trying to crucify corporate America.

Or that Obama smoked pot as a kid, and maybe sold it. Defended slumlords in the Chicago ghettos, and essentially skipped taking positions on an awfully lot of Illinois Senate votes.

The politicos- candidates, their handlers, the party operatives- all want voters to think they want to know only about 'the issues.'

But we know it's about character as much as, if not more than, issues. What did these candidates do for the past decade or two? How did they make their living? Who do they owe? Who have they taken into their confidences, their lives, and their campaigns?

How do they behave under stress? The stress of a heated exchange with a rival candidate?

That's what is most interesting. Watching Hillary and Obama fence directly with each other in that debate earlier this week. Trading blows in front of a catcalling crowd, while Edwards watched from an ever-more distant perspective.

I think this is what American voters want to see. Counterpunching up close between candidates, where we know they will unveil what they believe their opponents' worst secrets and greatest weaknesses are.

How better to know these things, than to let an opponent expose them for us? For free? We want total information. We don't want any more Jack Kennedy secret administrations, in which the press failed to print what it new about his affairs, mob contacts and health issues. Or the hidden secret of FDR's near-total immobility.

The political class don't want this, because it's easier to control campaigns that only focus on 'the issues.'

But, being America, in an era of unbridled, unmatched communications and access to information, that hope is long gone now. I'm not even sure Bill Clinton could have backed, filled and covered up sufficiently in this modern era to win the Presidency, if it were him running in 2008, instead of his wife.

Long live the mudslinging and investigative efforts of the rival candidates. It's the only chance we voters have to learn the total truth about him, or her, to whom we would entrust our most powerful office for the next four years.