Reasonable Bush Bashing

CBS News | Reasonable Bush Bashing | July 28, 2004 12:56:03: " The political press simply can't let go of the idea that puffing up your guy is somehow better for democracy than tearing down the other guy. I don't think that's correct in general. The relevant gauge is truth. I think accurate negative claims are better than inaccurate positive claims.

Moreover, if there's one time when negativity would do some real good for the body politic, it's now. For most of the last three years, Democrats have been a minority in both the House and Senate, and thus lacked a megaphone to critique Bush. And Bush has enjoyed an extraordinary series of honeymoons: first the wave of enforced unity after the Florida fiasco; then the genuinely felt unity after 9/11; then a smaller version of the same phenomenon before and during the first stages of the Iraq war. As a result, he has been unusually insulated from criticism. There are major lines of attack against Bush -- that he has inadequately funded homeland security, that he has been unusually profligate in spending tax dollars to bribe swing constituencies -- that are largely unfamiliar to most Americans.
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