The Art of Political Listening

[Zancan]

Politics has become all too personal in this divisive presidential campaign. The red-blue split among Americans reaches into homes, offices, and social circles.

This newspaper has felt it, too. Subscriptions are canceled over columnist John Hughes's conservative commentary or Dante Chinni's liberal commentary. Submissions to the opinion page increasingly are diatribes against left or right that neither inform nor persuade. Heated hallway arguments have erupted - complete with cracking voices - over such topics as Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" depictions of Mr. Bush.

Just three years after a terrorist strike threw the nation into a solidarity of the heart, how can Americans be so bitterly divided? Can we bridge the gulf?

An eight part opinion series, "Talking With the Enemy," concluding today on pages 8 and 9, explores better ways for opponents to talk about political differences. An article by the Republican and Democratic leaders of the 9/11 commission showed how they steered away from the urgings of their respective party members to look at facts free of an ideological lens. One author in the series asked how a mother would feel if her child asked, "Mommy, why do you hate the president?" (or other candidates).


http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1026/p11s01-comv.html