The purpose of this letter is to respond to an editorial in The China Post which I find to be extremely one-sided, painting President-elect Obama and the Democrats in the USA as saints if I might use that adjective, while the Republicans are masters of dirty tactics.

The Democrat’s victory is as simple as Political Science 101 which teaches that the electorate cast their votes based on their wallets, if the people are happy with their economic wellbeing, the current administration (or a successor) is typically re-elected. Take a look at the loss suffered by Labor in the just completed New Zealand elections due to the negative economic outlook (despite the fact that the National party had been accused of negative campaigning). Exit polling of US voters on Nov. 4th put the economy as the #1 issue, more important than foreign affairs, wars or the halo effect that was planted on Mr. Obama by the mainstream media. Mr. Obama most important job will be the need to improve the economy in the next 4 years or he can forget about a second term — all other issues take a back seat including Iraq!

The Democrats/Mr. Obama spouted clean politics while spending plenty of effort bashing the Bush Administration and by association McCain about the economy, foreign policy and wars that Bush “started” — unfortunately 90% of the Democrats in Congress sided with President Bush on the war issue.

The attacks by Democrats on Governor Palin are a case in point. We saw many slanders that she is very unqualified to be the Republican VP choice, should stay at home with the kids, did not know that Africa was continent, etc. They then went on to develop the “Trooper-gate” scandal towards the end of vilifying her (the Democrats in the Alaska legislature pushed up hearings to insure that a censure would be forthcoming prior to Election Day). I could go on but I think you get the point that the Democrats/Mr. Obama were actually wallowing in the same mud puddle as the Republicans.

I think that in the fog of euphoria over the Democrat’s win it is all too easy to believe mainstream media hype that included a similarly unjustified claim by Colin Powell about an honest and clean campaign by the Democrats/Mr. Obama — don’t kid yourself nor your readers, politics is a dirty game. In the next 4 years please expand your news sources to develop a fair and balanced opinion rather than regurgitating mainstream media hyperbole from the USA. It behooves us to look beyond the media bias prevalent in both the USA and Taiwan but that is another topic for another time.

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