re: #369 Son of the Black Dog

I think that the decline in “political discourse” began a long time ago (I noticed a real decline with Bill Clinton — some of was so vile, one could only hope that children wouldn’t be subjected to it, or by accident, run across something on the Internet re: Clinton and Monika, etc.) But, even then, back in the Clinton days, most of the vile junk seemed to be confined to the seedier websites…(now I just completely avoid any number of websites — a huge swath of websites, I refuse to visit — why bother?) Anyway, then during the Bush years (up here in Canada) the vile junk migrated to newspapers! That was a shock…to suddenly find what one would ordinarily find in some trashy website, appearing in print — I remember the local newspaper printing a picture of Bush as a monkey (the Bush as chimp), next it was a cartoon of him as Alfred E Neuman, etc.; and, in addition, this was all done as hugely hilarious and wonderful expressions of artistic merit…(and the editorials and the “letters to the editor” — all deranged, defamatory imo)…But I don’t recall any objections…It was all applauded…but, this is Canada, so, I don’t know, it’s to be expected? (right now, the Canadian media has been bending over backwards to appear pro-Obama — they’re like Chris Matthews in their adoration…but, now, there seems to be this backlash — mostly in the States? I trust the demonization of U.S. presidents won’t — as was done with Bush — become “normalized” — or, worse, become “mainstream” here…)