I am spending some time in Boca and the hotel delivers a New York Times to my room every morning. I have heard right wing criticism of the Times but it is incredible how biased and bereft of intelligence it can be.

The lead editorial wailed about how the Iraqi oil profits are not being used for reconstruction, and questions why the US is still footing the bill while we are paying such high prices. This is a good subject and deserving of attention.

Yet the writers can not write two paragraphs without referring to “President Bush’s disastrous adventure”, as if the whole affair was a reckless whimsy of the president and had no input from both parties, both houses of Congress, the Departments of Defense, Security, State and Intelligence, and most every global intelligence network. Regardless what you may think of the war and its execution such language demeans the complexity of such decisions.

But on the next page renowned PhD economist Paul Krugman writes in “Know Nothing Politics” that the Republicans are simply the “party of the stupid” because they are pushing strongly for more offshore drilling. He concludes that the Republicans think that “stupidity is the best policy.”

How bereft of intelligent writing and discussion do you have to be to simply label as “stupid” an opposing idea or policy. Is it so impossible to logically explain the fallacies of their position or the strengths of an alternative without resorting to juvenile name calling?

There is much to criticize about Bush, but the constant rhetoric of “lies” and “stupidity” destroys intelligent conversation and shows no depth in the nature of such decisions. It just sucks the intelligence out of the political debate.

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