Derision 2008 is here!

I'd like to believe that there was a time when politicians had something more to offer their electorate than a handful of underhanded potshots at their opponent, when they could provide us with thoughtful musings on government, something worth quoting, but I'm not even sure of that anymore. Maybe there

never were any "philosopher kings" to begin with and we dreamed them up, eager to have someone to emulate and look up to.

So far, with few exceptions, the campaign has been nothing but a childish battleground, a forum on which to administer low blows and sarcastic rebuttals, in the frantic race for Canadian hearts and votes. When party leaders aren't out-and-about kissing babies, shaking hands, vote pandering and bonding with the "common man", they're busy engaging in all-out war with each other. Decision 2008, you say? More like Derision 2008!

Thanks to the power of the internet, campaigning has reached a whole new low and the blogosphere has been bombarded with websites created by supporters (and, no doubt, spin doctors working behind the scenes) intent on spreading smears, half-truths and fake outrage at their opponent's insults, which, by the way, they themselves go to great lengths to spread around. My inbox has been flooded with press releases pointing me to the reasons why I shouldn't vote for each respective party.

Last week, the Conservatives got into trouble over a nasty anti-Dion website www.notaleader.ca), but a number of equally nasty anti-Conservative websites are out there - notably www.scandalpedia.ca, which dubs itself the "free Encyclopedia of Conservative scandals". I'm sure there are tons more, if I bothered to look, but I neither have the time nor the appetite for the inconsequential.

Offering a cheap, easy and extremely quick resource for a political campaign's gaffes and golden moments, the internet has fast emerged as an efficiently nasty tool that more political strategists are learning to rely on. YouTube, for example, is untraceable so it allows strategists to be as nasty as they want to be while spreading malicious, one-sided attacks with unbelievable speed; mudslinging at its high-tech best.

What do these supporters feel that they are accomplishing by having their party leaders associate with such crass, distasteful, irrelevant puffin-pooping websites? Why are the leaders not outraged and offended? Why do even the party-approved TV ads smack of fear mongering, empty promises and unscrupulous personal attacks?

At the same time, blame also lies with the media. While the political arena looks like a giant boxing ring, where the rules don't apply and below-the-belt hits are encouraged, what are we, journalists, doing while the public eggs them on? Hungry for the next sensational headline, we latch on to every word and repeat it as if it were truly newsworthy.

Journalists share accountability in this "dumbing down" of the news. We're the referees in the ring, but we're not doing our jobs properly. Because, at the end of the day, it's not about the pot shots and the vicious rebuttals. It's about the substance, the truth, the policies, the meat of the matter, and when all that gets lost in this petty wordplay, we're just as much to blame as their witty speech writers…