Nattering Negativity

Who knew America was in such danger from NAMBLA?

"The other big attack topics this cycle are Democrats and nonpedophilic sex, Democrats and drugs, Democrats and Osama, flag-burning, and illegal immigrants."

But conservative Andrew Ferguson , writing for Bloomberg, sees the press coverage of ads as overheated:

"'Negative Ads Rule the 2006 Elections,' says Congressional Quarterly. This is 'The Year of Playing Dirtier,' announced the Washington Post. 'The Election Campaign Is Talking Trash,' says the Baltimore Sun.

"Even those cold-eyed realists at the New York Times have succumbed to an attack of the election-year vapors. 'Theme of Campaign: Don't Be Nice' was the headline over a recent story about 'the most toxic midterm campaign environment in memory.'

"How toxic? 'It is,' reported the Times, 'a jarring blend of shadowy images, breathless announcers, jagged music and a dizzying array of statistics, counter-statistics and vote citations.'

"Statistics? Vote citations? Call me thick-headed, but I remain un-jarred. And I bet such outrages as 'counter- statistics' don't jar most voters either . . .

"When negative ads go too far, a self-correcting mechanism kicks in, as it often doesn't with misleading positive ads. One ad has been cited in almost every article about this year's toxic environment: Written by the National Republican Congressional Committee, it accused a Democratic candidate in upstate New York of billing taxpayers for a call to a phone-sex service.

"The ad was scurrilous and only minimally accurate (the phone call was made by mistake). Here's the good news: According to the National Journal, it was shown once on a single TV station. Every other station refused to air it -- at the request of the Republican candidate on whose behalf it was made."

Of course, it got plenty of free coverage from the tut-tutting media.

"All the fretting over negative ads -- and the fretting seems to intensify every election year -- betrays a lack of faith in the resiliency of self-government and in the intelligence of the people that self-government relies on: voters."

How rough are things for Bush? Here's a metaphor from Montana: