Another Commentary . . .

There's a guy named Mark Evanier who has a blog (newsfromme.com) that I enjoy reading. Even when I don't agree with him, he writes well and presents good argument. Here is one of his latest:

Saturday Morning On My Mind

Regarding Christine O'Donnell, who's running for the Senate in Delaware: I think it's kinda unfair to keep dredging up these clips from talk show appearances she made years ago as proof she's a looney. Then again, can anyone cite me one instance in recent years when anyone who opposed a candidate has had mud on that candidate and not flung it? If the most honorable person running for public office — whoever that is — had that kind of thing on their opponent, do you think the clip would not be up on YouTube? And yes, I know that speaking of the most honorable person running for public office is a little like discussing which of the Three Stooges had the highest intellect. (It was probably Joe Besser, the only one who quit...)

Not only are the clips of Ms. O'Donnell old but they're from shows where you had to be a little outrageous to get face time. If she'd advanced an intelligent, well-reasoned approach to issues like safe sex and birth control, she would never have gotten on some of those programs in the first place. She was, like so many folks who get on those programs, a bit of a freakish anomaly — a real cute woman who had all these weird ideas about sex. Conservatives love that because it puts an adorable face on their agenda. Liberals love it because it puts a naïve face on the Conservative agenda. Producers of both stripes love it because she's attractive and it's a way to get sex talk on their shows and not get criticized for it. Win/win/win.

So when she distances herself from the "witchcraft" clip, I say let it go. Voters in Minnesota didn't hold Jesse Ventura's wrestling past or Al Franken's worst Saturday Night Live bits against them. Dredging up Sarah Palin's beauty contest days or showing that clip of her in an exorcism...to me, that's almost like her opponents saying, "We can't make a good argument against the current person so we want you to vote against who she used to be." If they had footage of Ms. O'Donnell killing a man to watch him die or giving neck rubs to Bin Laden, that would be different. But this is like Ken Starr, under the cover of an "investigation," publishing every possible detail he could dig up about the size and shape of Bill Clinton's genitalia and where he put it. It's just trying to embarrass a political foe instead of dealing fairly with them.

And it's all so unnecessary in Christine O'Donnell's case because there's plenty of current, relevant reasons why she should not be allowed anywhere near public office. The woman lives in a fantasy world where the planet isn't getting warmer, the poor don't exist and you can talk horny 16-year-old kids out of having sex. You don't have to dig into the vaults to portray her as a looney. Just get her to do three interviews with anyone who'll challenge her more than Sean Hannity...or point out that if she won't do that, it's because she's incapable of answering a real question.