I’ve said before that while I do pay attention to some right-wing pundits, Michael Reagan is one that I usually skip. Once he calls the President “Barry Obama”, or says that anyone to the left of Attila the Hun is a commie, I turn elsewhere.

His recent column, Stand up or be fed campaign dirt, is a notable exception. I agree with every word of it. His gist is that mud-slinging is as old as US politics (it’s much older, of course), citing the war of slime between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. My personal favorite is the cry “Ma, Ma, where’s my Pa?” that was used against Grover Cleveland; his partisans rejoined “Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!”

Supposedly Cleveland himself announced that “At least I support my bastards.”

Having established his primary thesis, Reagan proceeds to even-handedly blame the media for feasting (his word) on this garbage. He then turns his opprobrium on us, the public, for hypocritically complaining about the mess while lapping up every last drop.

I can’t disagree with anything he said, but to be honest I’m pretty pessimistic. There seems to be no end to our appetite for reality shows in which people do things in public that most people would be ashamed (I hope) to do in private. If it weren’t for PETA, Animal Planet would probably be showing bear-baiting. For that matter, it’s a wonder that WWF doesn’t have cage matches between PETA members and lions.

All I can do is second Reagan’s call for the public to take a vocal stand; but it’s not like we can vote for the candidate who doesn’t wallow in the cesspool. If there are any, we’ll never hear about them.