AUSTIN, Texas -- Here's the challenge: Let's everybody with a dog in this fight -- meaning either pro-Gore or pro-Bush -- be obliged to make the case for the other side for at least 15 minutes.
Because I think we're watching something important, quite aside from the fate of the nation and the future of The World's Greatest Democracy (except for Florida).
In a mild and in some ways not terribly important case (I may have to eat those words), we're watching why wars start. What we see is the constant presentation -- because the media love to polarize -- of people who are apparently incapable of imagining what the situation looks like from somebody else's point of view.
Is it a lack of empathy, sympathy, imagination? A few years ago, James Carville, the Democratic consultant, wrote a book called We're Right, They're Wrong, which is a great title. Since I don't believe in objectivity -- I think that poor Al Gore won this election fair and square and that the Bushies are trying to spin their way into the White House -- I'm not trying to split the difference here, as in, "You know, they could both be right." Possible, but highly unlikely.