POLITICS: Extremes are squeezing middle

I'm getting really tired of the media circus effort to paint the Republicans as the ultra far right when the vast majority are somewhere in the middle. I'm also tired of the far right trying to paint the Democrats as the far left. Any reasonably sane person understands that Obama is a U.S. citizen, a Christian, and didn't try to take our gun rights away.

It would certainly be nice if we could have an intelligent discussion of the facts, and possible solutions to our problems, without all the name calling, fear mongering and political spin. From 2000 to 2008 our elected politicians, bankers, mortgage brokers and stock brokerage houses ran our economy into the ditch. There's plenty of blame to go around. That on-going disaster won't get fixed in one or two years no matter what the politicos tell us.

Going from one extreme to the other also won't fix the problems we face. When the political parties actually start working together in Washington instead of working against each other some of our problems might get fixed. I'm just one voter in the middle that would enjoy hearing a real plan to fix this mess instead of politicians, as well as radio and TV talk show hosts who spin everything to suit their audience's need for rabid discourse. I don't even watch TV, except sports, so as to avoid all the political ads. By the way, most of those ads are now funded by some large corporation that will want favors after the elections.

"We have seen the enemy, and he is us." - Li'l Abner

RICHARD MUNK

Coeur d'Alene