Neither party is above exploiting and manipulating. I won't bring a cloud of cynicism to your journal but it's a fact that politics has become all about winning at whatever cost. Neither party can escape the scrutiny of a fact check, and both parties have attack dogs. Goodness knows, the Clintons and their chief attack dog James Carville honed it to a razor edge in 1992 and the battle for the Democratic nomination this year had its share of nasty infighting also, it's not confined to mudslinging between the different parties. Really, politics turned ugly during the Clarence Thomas hearings in the '80's. The left mounted a smear campaign against Justice Thomas that would never have been tolerated if the right had been saying the same thing about an African American nominee. From that point onward, politics has been exceedingly ugly and personal, and it sickens me.