Rick Warren with John McCain and Barack Obama in 2008.

I really enjoyed the forum Rick Warren conducted in 2008 with John McCain and Barack Obama. I found it to be very informative about both candidates. It was a laid-back conversation, rather than a format with reporters asking confrontational or gotcha questions.

Warren planned to hold another during this campaign season. Both candidates, according to Warren, wanted to do it. The networks wanted to do it, since the previous one brought high ratings.

But Warren has pulled the plug, and I salute him for his reasons. He explained:

“We created the civil forums to promote civility and personal respect between people with major differences. The forums are meant to be a place where people of goodwill can seriously disagree on significant issues without being disagreeable or resorting to personal attack and name-calling. But that is not the climate of today’s campaign. I’ve never seen more irresponsible personal attacks, mean-spirited slander, and flat-out dishonest attack ads, and I don’t expect that tone to change before the election.

“It would be hypocritical to pretend civility for one evening only to have the name-calling return the next day.”

It goes along with what Michael Scherer suggested in one of my posts last week: “In the end, there is only one thing that will force these candidates, their campaigns and supporters to hue a straighter line: Their own constituencies must object.”

This may seem intellectually lame, but I’ve decided to pretty much ignore everything being said about Medicare. Both sides are demagoguing the issue, and lying about it, and the fixes both sides propose don’t happen until far down the road. I’ve decided it’s impossible for an ordinary person, like me, to understand what’s really happening–and that what actually happens probably won’t resemble what the candidates propose.

So I’m just gonna ignore it all. When I reach Medicare age (which isn’t all that far away), my attitude is: whatever it is, it is. Both parties will probably use “Mediscare” tactics for the rest of my life. So, Mitt and Barack, talk about Medicare all you want. But I’m tuning you out.

Politifact has covered statements about Medicare rather extensively. Here’s a collection of statements made by both sides, and Politifact’s determination of their truthfulness (or lack thereof).

An interesting perspective from veteran reporter Michael Scherer on Time’s Swampland blog about the ugly political ads on both sides. It’s not an entirely satisfying observation, and it raises additional ethical questions and stuff that would be interesting to discuss. But still, it’s a thought-provoking observation which rings true to me, though simultaneously distasteful. Scherer, whose writing I’ve liked for some years now, also offers the beginnings of a solution.

“Let us just assume the following: Both politicians in the current race employ political professionals who are paid to use the most effective tactics in their business, often with little regard to ethical abstractions like fairness and honesty. This does not mean that neither candidate has a moral core. It only means that the behavior of his campaign is a poor gauge of his core and that both men, as presidential aspirants, have made peace with the idea that stretching the truth is a basic requirement of the game at this level.

“Now, this does not mean that the fibbing is acceptable. But if we remove the outrage, or at least minimize it, then maybe we can focus not just on the deceptions of the guy we don’t like but also on the deceptions of the guy we like. For in the end, there is only one thing that will force these candidates, their campaigns and supporters to hue a straighter line: Their own constituencies must object.”