Due to excessive amounts of schoolwork coupled with the demands of my job, The Last Word is going on a brief semi-hiatus. I'll update every week or two, but no more than that... I just have too much going on.

And now, for your reading pleasure, my column from the school paper that is coming out tomorrow. Lucky you - you get it a day early as a bonus for being a loyal reader.

For the inaugural run of the second and final year of The Last Word in The North Star, I decided that my limited space would best be used to discuss the alarming extremes that this political season has gone to. This election season has seen mudslinging and personal attacks on an unprecedented level, both from the candidates themselves and from organizations on both sides of the aisle.

One of the forces driving the fiery rhetoric is the large number of radicals on both sides who are turning to methods that border on ridiculous. For instance, what’s the deal with the anarchist groups that plotted (unsuccessfully, thank goodness) to shut down the Republican National Convention by purposefully snarling security arrangements and leaving the door wide open for potential terrorist threats? Or the woman who was recently arrested for interrupting a speech by the First Lady—after giving an interview in which she expressed the desire to torture and murder the president? Or the union worker in West Virginia who ripped a Bush-Cheney ’04 sign from the hands of a three-year-old­ girl and tore it up? Or Dan Rather of CBS, who accepted unauthenticated, inflammatory documents and presented them on national television as factual in a desperate attempt to discredit President Bush?

While I have nothing against loud, vigorous debate—I’m a pretty big fan, to be perfectly truthful—and I am a staunch supporter of the right to free speech, the actions that we have seen in the past weeks and months have far overstepped the boundaries of reasonable political disagreement. In the words of Joseph Welch (Joe McCarthy’s questioner): “Have you no decency?”

Of course, one can hardly ignore the fact that nearly all of the outrageous acts that have been committed have come from hard-left, anti-Bush radicals who seem bent on not only getting John  Kerry elected,  but also smearing President Bush with ludicrous untruths and preposterous lies. Still, despite barrages of confrontational political books along with the endless number of ads from liberal 527 groups, the president has managed to stay well above John Kerry in nearly every major poll since the Republican National Convention.

I can only hope that America continues to see through the propagandist drivel of the likes of Michael Moore, Al Franken and Molly Ives.