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Debate DOA?
Richard C. Harwood, President, The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation
Many commentators have been saying that tonight’s debate won’t matter. They’ve pronounced the debate dead on arrival, especially due to its format, the post-debate spin they anticipate, and the candidates’ unwillingness to be forthright.
While there may be some truth to these critiques, they create a deeper problem for America. Their dismissive tone spreads a narrative that we ought not to take these debates seriously. In turn, many people may not watch tonight or will reflexively discount the results. Americans are anxious about the direction of the nation. They want a leader who can provide a vision for the future, outline the necessary steps to achieve it, and provide a sense of personal and common security.
I agree that tonight’s debate format is unconscionable – a result of politics as usual and meek candidates. But spinning a narrative of futility only breeds further disengagement.
Here’s what I think we should do about tonight’s debate:-
1.Watch the debate – the more people who
watch, the more the candidates will get the
message that people care. Then they will be
more likely to give us what we need.
2.Tune out the spin – don’t listen to all the spin and noise after the debates. Sleep on it and see what you think in the morning.
3.Talk to your friends – talk to people tomorrow about what they heard and saw. Make sure to find people who have differing opinions from your own. Too often we just confirm own beliefs by talking to people with whom we already agree.
4.Do some legwork – use the Harwood Barometer for Political Conduct as you watch the debate tonight. It will help you get past all the silliness and determine if you think the candidates are genuinely speaking to you and the nation.
I don’t like the way this campaign is unfolding. But tonight’s debate is important and we shouldn’t simply dismiss it because it doesn’t meet all of our expectations.
We should step up and watch.
And please join me here tomorrow, and the day after each debate. I’ll be joined by some fantastic guests who will help you spur your thinking, and offer a civic-minded perspective you won’t find in the spin cycle of regular debate analysis. Guest bloggers will include:- Cole Campbell, dean of the Donald
W. Reynolds School of Journalism, University
of Nevada - Reno
Veronica De La Garza, Executive Director of The Youth Vote Coalition
Jehmu Greene, President of Rock The Vote
Rita Kirk, specialist in political communication and Chair of the Corporate Communications & Public Affairs Division, Southern Methodist University
Matthew Yglesias, Blogger and staff writer at The American Prospect
I’m looking forward to their comments, and I hope you will check back often to add your own voice. -
Holding Ourselves Accountable
Wherever we turn - to politics, to philanthropy, or the private sector, we find a discussion of accountability.
Too often, however, accountability means what others expect from us rather than what we expect from ourselves.
I explain the difference in the most recent edition of Philanthropy News Digest, a publication of The Foundation Center.
Click here to read the article. -
Eye On America
The Dan Rather fiasco over President Bush’s military service record is rapidly deteriorating into a free-fall for CBS News and a round-the-clock free-for-all for pundits and analysts. The problem is that we will miss the real issue in all this brouhaha.
CBS News rushed to use documents in a news story that were poorly checked out. They decided to stretch the truth as far as they could take it, hoping, despite warning signs, that everything would work out. It didn’t. It seldom does when we play with reality.
Jay Rosen, NYU journalism professor, wrote yesterday about the CBS News situation: "Today's announcement is just one part of a massive institutional failure at CBS, much of it still to be uncovered. When the case study is done, the part that will seem extraordinary, and most inexplicable, is the ignorant and high-handed reaction from word one in the game of doubt that began on the Internet shortly after the broadcast aired."
The real issue here is not merely about document forgery or journalistic ethics, but our very notion of accountability. How far will people go in looking you in the eye and telling you one thing and then doing another? We’ve seen that some in the news media and politics will go way too far. Their actions reflect a “dumbing down” of expectations in public life. Anything goes – so long as there is a wink and a nod.
The CBS News actions smack of the same kind of behavior we’ve repeatedly seen from the presidential candidates. Take the mean-spirited, negative, and downright frustrating expenditures by the so-called “527” groups (e.g., Swift Boat ads). First, Senator Kerry tells the American people he supports campaign finance reform, and often seizes the mantle of reform on the campaign trail. But he sits on his hands and won’t really do anything to halt the insidious 527 expenditures by fellow Democrats. Similarly, President Bush, who opposed campaign finance reform, and only reluctantly signed it, then had the gall to praise the new law when seeking cover during the Swift Boat debate; he said that he has always opposed “soft money” expenditures and, thus, the 527 ads.
Neither candidate has had the courage to take on these ads, and shame them off the air. They hide behind the legal separation between their campaigns and these “independent” groups. They say their hands are tied. I don’t buy it. Nothing is stopping either candidate from standing up and saying, “I denounce these ads both in form and substance. They have poisoned the campaign, and the American people deserve better. If you care about the future of this country, you will put a stop to these ads.”
If the President of the United States can put a stop to Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq, surely he can put a stop to some television commercials. And if the Democratic nominee can’t stand up and be a leader in his own party, how can we expect him to lead the nation? Instead of debating whether or not the candidates displayed courage thirty years ago, we must demand that both of them show some courage now.
Accountability is not just for CBS News anchors and presidential candidates, but for all of us. There is great temptation for us to hide behind rules, procedures, and the status quo. But to create change, we must have the courage to step forward and hold ourselves accountable for doing what we believe is necessary and right. If we start with ourselves, eventually our leaders will follow.
The eye on America is on each of us. -
The Passing of 9/11
9/11 came and went this weekend. As it did, I wondered about its meaning. Is the date anything more than something we have come to pretend holds significance for us? Our politicians now invoke it in speeches, as if it is a requisite touchstone that must be given its due. The news media do stories on cue – almost as if they must fill their pages or broadcast minutes to meet the test of propriety. But are these stories anything more than empty filler – here today, forgotten tomorrow?
What does 9/11 mean anymore, just three short years after the tragic event? Have we become numb to the scenes of people falling, or jumping, to their death from one-hundred stories up? Do pictures of the smoldering rubble look like anything more than any other demolition site? Have the gut-wrenching tales of New York City emergency workers been equated to the self-indulgent woes told routinely on daytime talk shows?
Can we decipher 9/11 anymore?
I believe that in our society, nowadays, we talk endlessly about events like 9/11 so that we do not have to stop long enough to let the pain seer our souls. It can be a lot of babble, and posturing, and cheap therapy – all to make us feel better about ourselves – all without having to consider what really needs to change. The conversation takes place “out there” – beyond each of us as individuals, where we simply give a wink and a nod to the tragic events and our duty is done.
I faced this very challenge this weekend. Three years ago, when my daughter’s soccer league resumed play after 9/11, the players from teams, along with their parents, came into the center of the field for a moment of silence. As one of the coaches, I was designated to talk about 9/11 and to ask everyone to bow their heads.
On my way to the game this weekend, on 9/11, I wondered if we should again come to the middle of the field. This time I decided against it. This year, I felt that somehow the meaning of 9/11 had washed over us. We had become so familiar with it, that we had lost its meaning.
Perhaps a little distance might do us a lot of good. -
What a Week
That was a lot of fun.
I want to take a moment to thank my guests last week for their great thoughts. They really added a great dimension to this site. Thanks also to all the readers who took time to share their comments on the posts, through email, and in phone calls!
A few people asked why I didn’t have a similar discussion about the Democratic Convention. This site is still fairly new and, frankly, we just thought of the idea as the Republican Convention approached. The timing gave me the opportunity to try something new, and I think it turned out very well in the end. I plan to have similar forums around any number of events in the future, including the upcoming presidential debates.
Thanks again to everyone who contributed. Check back as the campaign heats up and we all engage in working for the public good. There’s sure to be lots to talk about – and lots to do.
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Rebuilding on What Foundation?
Guest: Bill Bishop, Reporter, Austin American-Statesman
This country’s dead-set certainty that it can “rebuild” a nation tells all about why we so often fail at doing just that.
The formula was simple, the President told us last night. We take out the bad leadership in Iraq and then we rebuild the country, using some version of the Marshall Plan. Easy as pie.
President Bush explained the formula late in his speech. Yeah, people crab about what’s happening in the Middle East, Bush said. Well, they crabbed about the desolation of Germany after World War II. “Fortunately, we had a resolute president named Truman, who with the American people persevered, knowing that a new democracy at the center of Europe would lead to stability and peace,” he continued. We “held firm” and because we did “we live in a better and safer world today.”
And maybe the Germans had something to do with it, too. I don’t know. Bush never mentioned ‘em. Democracy and economic development, in the President’s world, are items that can be given to a place, like a road or a bell for a cathedral.
Historically this is wrong. Germany was one of the most advanced economies in the world before the war. It was a mini-America and just needed aid to get the internal engines of growth and innovation up and running. The Marshall Plan aid helped, but it didn’t create economy so much as restart one. In places where there was no existing economy – Southern Italy, for example – the Marshall Plan didn’t do squat.
The fact is, we don’t know how to build either economies or democracies. Hey, if Bush and his boys know how to build an economy, how about building one in Appalachia, or down here on the Mexican-Texas border. President Bush had six years as governor of Texas to tidy things up, but the border remains the most persistently poor place in America.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of here. Nobody knows how to impose either democracy or an economy on a people or a place. The West Germans have tried for 14 years in the East and have mostly succeeded in plunging both halves of the country into debt.
Now, with a lick and a prayer – most of all, a prayer – the country is committed to rebuilding the economy of the Middle East. If only we had a done a bit better job in Eastern Kentucky or the Mississippi Delta I would have more confidence in our prospects. -
The Ownership Society
Richard C. Harwood, President, The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation
President Bush threw the gears into reverse last night at the Republican Convention by offering a hopeful, often visionary speech to the American people. What a difference a day makes! Hang onto your seats. The differences in this campaign are now crystal clear. We'd all benefit if only the candidates would now engage rather than trashtalk each other. There is one theme from the President's speech I want to raise specifically this morning: "the ownership society." The president continually returned to the ideas of liberty, freedom, individual control, ownership -- each and all emphasizing the individual in society, and maximizing their independence. But independence from what and whom? I and others in this space have discussed the extent to which people have been separating from one another in this country. We move to places with like-minded folks. Many Americans have retreated from public life into close-knit circles and behind gated communities. We are told to behave as consumers -- get what you want, when you want it -- 24/7. Sure, let's help every American buy a home and attend college. I have those dreams for my own kids. But I have another dream too: that each of us belongs to the common society. This is not some abstract notion, but a practical aspiration and need. Both candidates need to challenge the American people on this, rather than merely auction off tax cuts and new government programs as a way to win votes. For instance, in the common society:- • People feel ownership of their
government -- that it listens, is responsive,
and is not held hostage by special interests,
and doesn’t give only lip service to these
ideas.
• People feel ownership of their involvement
-- that the expectation in this society is that
each of us will step up and really become
involved in our communities, not turn away from
them.
• People feel ownership of each other --
that is, they see themselves as connected, and
so challenges of health care, public schools,
and other concerns are framed in terms of what
"we, as a society" need, not what "I" want. We
must think beyond ourselves.
• People feel an ownership of the tone of
public life -- that we will come out from our
close-knit circles and engage one another,
debate and, when possible, find common ground.
We simply cannot retreat into our enclaves.
The president's speech creates the expectation of maximized ownership and total liberty in America. But we cannot live alone. John Kerry would do well to heed this message, too. His "middle class contract" is really not a contract at all, where people must reciprocate in fulfilling some obligation, but a bill of goods he is selling the American people. Let's reset the expectations. Let's have a new common society -- where people pursue their individual dreams and work for the public good. -
Tuning Out
Guest: Meredith McGehee, Executive Director, Alliance for Better Campaigns
Wow, Zell Miller is one angry man! And Dick Cheney doesn’t get mad. He gets even.
So with all these emotions and accusations flying around, you’d think this would be compelling television. Not! Or at least that's what the ratings seem to reflect.
And if my mother is any measure, these conventions are as irrelevant to her life as are the reality television shows she doesn’t watch. “These conventions are just infomercials,” she said when I asked if she was watching the convention. “I don’t want to waste my time on them.”
That’s a difficult message for someone like me who has been calling on the networks to air the convention more than 1 hour a night. The networks respond that doing so is a ratings loser. We in turn say that if their news departments had real journalists, they could look behind the infomercial and provide more background, more context, more investigation.
So I guess it’s no surprise that we’re at a standstill. Infomercial conventions, negative ads abound, more worship of the cult of celebrity….
No one should be surprised that, even though big issues are at stake in this election, most Americans seem to be seeking freedom from politics. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing -- if this weren’t a democracy. -
Our Just Desserts
Guest: Carol Darr, Director, Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at The George Washington University
So, RH, how would you brand Zell Miller? He's been called Zig Zag Miller in the past, and not without reason. It's interesting that a party that is attacking its opponent so vociferously for flip flopping proffers as its keynote speaker someone who started out as an aide to segregationist Georgia Governor Lester Maddox then led the fight when he himself was governor to remove the Confederate emblem from the Georgia state flag. Such political growth and maturity over time is to be applauded, it seems to me, not derided. Yet all politicians today fear -- and with good reason -- the consequences of changing their minds or misspeaking. After Mitt Romney's speech last night, Mark Shields reminisced about what a fine public servant his father, George Romney, was. Yet as Shields pointed out, George Romney's lifetime of public service was forgotten in an instant when he described being "brainwashed' by U.S. generals during the Viet Nam War. Romney was forced to drop out of the presidential primary, having been his party's frontrunner. We can blame the press all we want for such harsh treatment of citizens who put themselves forward for public office, but the fact is we ourselves are the ones responsible for driving good people from office, and worse yet, for tolerating a civic culture that dissuades good people from running for office in the first place. We complain about candidates who are too cautious, too scripted, and too poll-driven. Yet when candidates change their minds, mature from youthful extremism, evolve in their thinking, they leave themselves open to mocking insults, contempt and charges of flip flopping. We deserve what we get, and we are getting just what we deserve. CD -
A Tale of Two Parties
Guest: Bill Bishop, Reporter, Austin American-Statesman
Well, after last night, at least now we know how this campaign is going to play out. The Republicans figure this is a turnout election. It’s not about persuasion or argument or anything but juicing up people so that by election day all they can think to do is vote.
That much the commentators seemed to know last night on FoxCNNMSNBCPBS.
But there is a peculiar political geography driving all this that is NOT a part of the national political discussion.
Republicans need to work on turnout because their strongest blocks of support are EXTREMELY dispersed. They are hard to get to. They also live in such strongly Republican regions that turnout might be depressed because of a lack of competitiveness. We’ll have the full story in a week or two in the Austin American-Statesman, but here is a preview.
We are conditioned to believe that Democrats were always the party of the big city and Republicans were always the party of the suburbs and countryside. Not so. In 1976, the average size of a landslide Republican county was significantly larger than the average landslide Democrat county. (Landslide here means one party beat the other by 20 percentage points or more in a head to head count.)
Over the next six elections, however, there was a remarkable change. By 2000, Al Gore had landslide margins in 199 counties. Bush had landslides in nearly 1500 counties. (In all, these counties accounted for nearly half of all voters.)
But Gore’s counties on average, were six times larger than Bush’s counties – and the Democratic counties had two million MORE voters.
There are all sorts of long-term problems facing Republicans. But, short term, they have a turnout issue. Their core voters are spread all over the place, so they are hard to reach and hard to organize on Election Day. They live in homogenous and isolated regions – which can also depress turnout. Rove has been worried about turnout among evangelicals and rural folks for the past four years.
Now they are acting. They want to fire up their people. And, just as important, they want to move more people into the undecided category. (Partisan believers vote; those in the middle vote less.)
No doubt Bush, speaking tonight, will make a pitch more to the suburban voters around Philadelphia – who last night must have thought they had tuned into Inherit the Wind rather than the Republican convention. But that won’t change the geography of how the two parties are, quite literally, based in two different worlds. And it’s those different worlds that are driving Republican strategy right now. -
The Ink Blot Campaign
Richard C. Harwood, President, The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation
Wow, last night was some show of force. What's left to say. Is anyone still alive? President Bush's speech is almost anti-climatic, which may be by design. Which leads me to this thought. Have you noticed the big blue "W" signs everywhere at the convention? In fact, before the convention, USA Today had a front page photo of the president with a big "W" sign right off to his side. Every time I see this "W" I feel as though we have reached a new level of "branding" candidates. It's like when the musician Prince changed his name to a symbol. No need for names anymore! I think of "W" as a strong letter. Maybe it stands for "warrior" or "wisdom" -- certainly not wimp, that's what the Bush folks have dubbed their opponent. I suspect the Bush people would also like it to stand for "women"; that way they can address any gender gap. Next, one can only expect Kerry to develop his own moniker, one to which he has alluded in the past, but hasn't really exploited: "JFK." Then we will have the battle between "W" and "JFK." So, as with Prince, no need for names -- first or last. No need for all that many words, either. The campaign will simply be a new kind of ink blot test: do voters respond better to "W" or "JFK"? We are in the process of attaching all sorts of meanings to them. Which connotations will voters respond to? It's strange that the more there is at stake, the less we talk about it, and the more we get back to our basic letters. Is that what is meant when people say everything we need to know we learned in kindergarten? So, I want to get in early on this new trend. Just call me RH. -
Of Grace and Arrogance
Guest: Carol Darr, Director, Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at The George Washington University
Rich Harwood's two commentaries on the Republican convention focus on the theme of grace and humility vs. certainty and partisanship. Each party, he comments, spend too much time demonizing the other, and too little addressing the larger and more important issues the beset the country.
Rich's call for grace and humility in the face of the widespread and mutual contempt that both parties exhibit toward their political opponents calls to mind Niccolo Machiavelli's comments about arrogant and insulting behavior.
Machiavelli said that arrogance springs from two impulses, an overestimation of one's own abilities, and an underestimation of the power of one's opponent. Insults, he said in the Discourses, are "usually caused by victory or the false hope of victory" and "inflame your enemy and egg him on to revenge." This arrogant behavior does not take "any strength from the enemy" - "in no way impedes him" - but instead "makes him hate you more and more and plan with greater zeal to harm you."
The arrogant person is thus harmed from both ends: he or she strengthens opponents and makes him- or herself more vulnerable. For these reasons, in the Discourses, Machiavelli advises leaders "to employ all suitable measures against the use of insults and taunts... for there is nothing that inflames the minds of men more or raises greater anger whether it is said in earnest or jokingly."
Thus, if political leaders on both sides cannot find it within themselves to act with more grace and humility, perhaps they can be persuaded to take a more expansive view of their self-interest. "From such pride a prince ought to guard himself as from a shoal, because to bring hatred on himself without any return is in every way rash and imprudent," Machiavelli cautions.
Carol Darr teaches a course on Machiavelli's political advice at GW's Graduate School of Political Management. -
The Shadow of Celebrity
Guest: Meredith McGehee, Executive Director, Alliance for Better Campaigns
As I watched the convention last night, what struck me is how the culture of celebrity has overtaken every aspect of modern American life. And this culture of celebrity is now mutually reinforced by television and the political parties. Television types like to air celebrities because it makes for better ratings – their holy grail. Knowing that television exposure is the key way to communicate our 21st Century America, party leaders are eager to offer celebrities so they can get on television and in turn get their “message” out. Thus, we are see the two biggest Republican celebrities lead off the first two days convention -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and John McCain.
And for those of us who are actually watching the conventions on the non-broadcast channels (Public Television, CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, etc.), we are also treated other celebrities – football player Jason Seahorn with his actress wife Angie Harmon and actor Ron Silver among them. At the Democratic convention, we got actress Glen Close in a speaking role and a large entourage of other actors and musicians, with former President Clinton the only real political celebrity to match Schwarzenegger.
In short, celebrity has become a substitute for substance. How can we expect a campaign marked by “grace” when the popular culture feeds on crass exploitation (Fear Factor, The Apprentice, etc.) and the political culture rewards craven, poll-driven policies or knee-jerk patriotism that squelches debate? -
Politics of the Like-Minded
Guest: Bill Bishop, Reporter, Austin American-Statesman
Okey dokey, let’s try to understand why campaigns – especially this campaign – tends more toward hate and ridicule than toward reason.
First, we have to understand something about political demography. It’s this: We are increasingly unlikely to live among those who think differently than we do, especially when it comes to decisions about who should be president. We’ve been doing a hell of a lot of work here in Austin looking at presidential elections at the community levels since 1946. What we’ve found is that since the mid-1970s, communities have become increasingly politically homogenous.
(Anybody who wants to see the math or the details can write me – bbishop@statesman.com -- or go to www.statesman.com/greatdivide.)
Nothing evil about this. Our society has created great wealth and that wealth has given us many choices. One choice some of us have made is to live among those who are like-minded. This urge to do so is ancient.
It’s also tribal – as are our politics. We’ve not only moved to be among likeminded neighbors, but the parties have moved to represent social types more than ideas or issues. There was always a Bible Belt, for example. But only in the last 30 years has this social fact come to have political meaning. In that sense, political parties are more like tribes than groups for reasoned discussion or consistent advocacy. (See a great new book on the subject, Partisan Hearts and Minds.)
So we have increasingly isolated social groups and we have political parties that increasingly align with them. Bad combination. Political writer Stuart Rothenberg told us:"When you start chopping up an electorate narrowly and narrowcasting messages to them, you create smaller societies that see themselves as separate. It destroys the sense of community and common interests and values. It makes it a lot easier to see your opponent in caricature terms, as not entirely patriotic or caring about old people. Each party uses these ridiculous stereotypes. . . . That does fit with an electorate and a country that is increasingly fractured."
Now, if we lived in politically competitive communities, turnout would be higher. (David Campbell at Notre Dame has found this to be true.) But we don’t. So we use an even more powerful political device to get out the vote: hate.
With fewer undecided votes and an isolated electorate, turnout is key. And the way to turn out voters is by pissing them off. Social scientists have persistently found that turnout among those who feel partisanly Republican or Democratic is higher than for those who consider themselves independents. And Ohio State University political psychologist Jon Krosnick has said that turnout is highest when voters "like one candidate and hate another."
So there we are. Or, here we are. People are grouping into likeminded groups. (The most politically homogenous institution – Democrat AND Republican – is the local church.) These likeminded groups are talking themselves into more extreme positions.
The parties are responding to this social fact of political life. And they are using the most powerful tools they can find to increase turnout in an election where turnout will determine the winner.
There you have it, and there is no immediate way out. -
Contempt and Grace
Richard C. Harwood, President, The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation
I keep watching the campaign and feeling that there is something big missing. It comes around and around for me, but last night I was reminded of it yet again as I listened to the speeches and then the Harlem Boys Choir's beautiful rendition of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. In one of the verses of that song, there is the line: "As ye deal with my contemners, So with you my grace shall deal." Think about this line. Let it swirl within you for a moment. Then sit back and you might hear the song's refrain echo in your soul, "The truth is marching on." Much of this campaign has been about both sides dealing with their perceived "contemners." At times those individuals are terrorists; others times, it is the opposing party and their supporters. There is no shortage of heated rhetoric. But what I have not seen in this campaign is much "grace" -- a sense of propriety and good will. In this campaign, I wonder how far the combatants will go to distort past facts and to obfuscate real issues? To what extent will each side demonize the other, simply to score political points and win the coveted "swing voters"? My concern is not merely reflected in Governor Schwarzenegger’s joke last night, when he tagged the Democratic convention with one of his film titles, "True Lies." No, I am concerned this morning about the utter lack of grace in this campaign. This is a more difficult test. It requires people to exercise judgment and restraint. Indeed, they must come into the campaign with an operating sense of affection for public life and people, and that affection must infuse and inform everything they do. What might this campaign look like if more grace was exercised? I believe we would have a better sense of where these candidates want to lead the nation, as opposed to them simply arguing over the past. They would talk about their genuine differences, rather than distort them. They would articulate a story of America, and let us see how it might be written. They would challenge us to think about our responsibilities as individuals and as part of something larger than ourselves. They would interpret grace to mean, in part, that they are coming to us -- not at us. Bill Bishop wrote yesterday that journalists would be well advised to move off their master narratives in their reporting so that "the new story of the nation and the world doesn't turn out to sound so much like the old." The campaigns should take Bill's advice. Then, Meredith McGehee asked, "What about wisdom and judgment" in this campaign. Yes, indeed, we need more of that. Grace doesn't cost money. It's not something a campaign needs one of those new "527" organizations to do for them under the guise of independent expenditures. One doesn't need fancy focus groups or surveys or public relations. The candidates and the people in their campaigns, for the most part, know what grace is. They would do us all a favor if they would remind themselves and remind us. After all, the truth is marching on.