Alex Miller, editor@vaildaily.com
July 16, 2008

One of my first big stories as a reporter was covering a murder trial in Breckenridge in the early 1990s. The case involved a teenager who shot a cop near Georgetown, and much of the case boiled down to what’s known as “blood spatter” evidence. (I’ve never seen the show, but I imagine this is the kind of thing one would also see on “CSI.”)

During that case and in subsequent trials I covered, I observed firsthand what anyone who works in the criminal justice system knows very well: It’s not so much what you did or didn’t do but how well the lawyers argue for or against what they’ve decided is the truth. In any given case, it’s probably fair to say that someone is lying and someone is not – although the degrees on either side can be subject to a great many other factors.

The experience can leave one jaded and thinking that our society is weighted toward a black-or-white view of the truth. Since Sept. 11, it seems, shades of gray and anything resembling nuance have been replaced by the “with us or against us” philosophy espoused by the Bush administration. This kind of thing is a timeless tool employed in wartime, but it’s difficult to find it abundantly useful when we have a situation that does not involve two armies aligned against each other on the field. Who, exactly, are our enemies and what “war” should we be fighting?

Earlier this week, Sen. Barack Obama gave a speech about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and his plan for ramping down troops in the former and beefing them up in the latter. The speech was given just before Obama’s planned trips to both countries, and his rival, Sen. John McCain, wryly pointed out that Obama was premature in outlining a strategy before his “fact-finding” trip, rather than after. It was a legitimate point, but skirted the real issue: A majority of Americans are in favor of getting out of Iraq as soon as possible. Obama supports the view; McCain does not. The senator from Arizona knows he’s on the wrong side of public opinion on this, so he works the perimeter of the argument–as any politician would.

And there’s the trouble with politics– similar to that of the criminal justice system: One must pick black or white and proceed as if there were never a doubt. Obama may see wisdom in some of McCain’s positions, and vice-versa, but politics demand neither give anything resembling credence to the other. Voters, then, are left trying to parse the nuance–a near-impossible task if we rely only on the media skewed toward our beliefs. If all you ever look at are communities of similar interest such as dailykos.com or Fox News, you only reinforce what you already believe.

No wonder there are so many uncommitted and independent voters out there. It may be hard for dyed-in-the-wool Democrats or Republicans to comprehend, but there is a significant number of people who don’t vote by party but by ideals (or, for some, sheer cluelessness). It’s easier to just vote for the person with the “D” or the “R” next to their name, but often to do so is to hew to that single-minded belief that one is all right, the other all wrong. And how could that be?

Not liking that stark choice between one or the other is why candidates like Ralph Nader and Bob Barr will strip votes from the major parties. The fact that most of us will choose either A or B is the reason so many of us won’t like the end result. In the case of the presidency, the wrong choice can be many times worse than allowing a murderer to go free.


Alex Miller is responsible for the editorial oversight of the Vail Daily, Eagle Valley Enterprise and Vail Trail. He can be reached at (970) 748-2920, or editor@vaildaily.com.