Cool Cartoon

I really like The K Chronicles by Keith Knight (posted every Wednesday at salon.com). It's sharp, funny, and more often than not rings true, whether he's addressing a political issue (as in the above strip) or a more personal one (often on the travails of first-time parenthood). I think he's on to something about the odd double standards that seem to apply in current political discourse, and I don't just mean each side giving their respective extremists a pass (check out this recent poll data). It's the quick dismissal of not the substance of a statement, but its source (often basing the decision on a stereotype promoted by some demagogue). For some reason we'll only acknowledge someone's credibility if we suspect they see things our way. Maybe it's always been like that, but I know that we have passed long periods in our history where it was possible for people of different partisan sympathies to sit down and talk to each other, and in fact, often reach compromises for the general good of the country without the rancor that dominates today. Why does it have to be like that? I'm glad that someone like Knight can find the humor in this recent trend, as it suggests to me that perhaps we aren't too far gone.