Fairness

Is it fair to invent stories about Barack Obama and disseminate them in major newspapers and Republican emails

For example, is it fair to create a fake bru-ha-ha claiming he received a discount on his home mortgage

Is it fair to take a true story about his refusal to sign a schoolboy's hand without his mother's approval and turn it into a fake story about him refusing to give the boy a fist bump?

And what does it say about our Mainstream Media?

At the same time, is it fair to point out John McCain's own inconsistencies, on camera and in print, about whether he really understands economics?

Is it fair to point out that his health insurance plan might actually raise taxes?

Is it fair to point out that one of his topmost fundraisers supported a terrorist organization?

Is it fair to bring up a story told by a Republican Senate colleague about McCain flying off the handle during a diplomatic meeting, grabbing a Sandinista official by the collar and physically lifting him off his chair?

And how about this: Is it fair to call McCain's campaign a run for El Presidente George W. Bush's Third Term if he's using one of Bush and Cheney's top men to run his campaign?

Whether the fabricated stories about Barack Obama are part of the Mainstream Media's bias in favor of balance, even when the truth tips in one particular direction (i.e. away from Conservative rule), or whether they're part of a concerted attempt to make a real horse race in an attempt to keep people watching the news and buying newspapers, it doesn't much matter, does it?

We've got a nation in dire need of change.  One candidate brings it, albeit with less extremism than his purity trolls would like and less than the 100% certainty of winning that his concern trolls need.  The other may be a different individual than the current White House occupant, but the party to which he must appeal, that runs his campaign, and from which his appointees would be drawn is exactly the same.  And the guy doesn't seem that stable of temperament, that sound of judgment, or that educated in those areas most central to our nation's troubles.

So life isn't fair.

So what.