Tuesday, August 30, 2016

It used to be very peaceful pre-Labor Day....

JFK sailing at Hyannis Port. Ike relaxing with Mamie at Gettysburg. Jimmy Carter tilling the Georgia red soil. William Jennings Bryan getting a satisfying rub-down with gin, a practice he felt stimulated his nerve endings and increased circulation. (He smelled like he drank it, but he didn't.)
Everyone taking a break from the tumultuous business of conventions (Congress in recess, of course) waiting for the cooling air of September before they heated up the campaigns.

That was the way presidential campaigns used to spend their end of summer days.

 But no longer. Donald Trump started things off with intemperate attacks on the Khan family. Thousands of new Hillary emails revealed. And of course, the latest and saddest Anthony Weiner escapade, which Trump has taken advantage of to once again lambast Hillary for being irresponsible: "I only worry for the country that Hillary Clinton was careless and negligent in allowing Weiner to have such close proximity to highly classified information."

This probably all got started with the Swift-boating of John Kerry, back in 2004, but there really oughta be a law against August campaigning. People are  hot. Tempers are short. Instead of relaxing photo ops of our nominees swimming and playing golf, we have to watch them grimly duking it out and think, Oh, God, we actually have months more of this to go.

Perhaps that gin bottle isn't a bad idea, after all....

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