do we really care?

Remember this column on decency by Frank Rich the next time you watch some Sunday news program in which they're debating how moral values is such a hot topic:

The mainstream press, itself in love with the "moral values" story line and traumatized by the visual exaggerations of the red-blue map, is too cowed to challenge the likes of the American Family Association. So are politicians of both parties. It took a British publication, The Economist, to point out that the percentage of American voters citing moral and ethical values as their prime concern is actually down from 2000 (35 percent) and 1996 (40 percent).

This self aggrandizing is also very evident in the letter from Maureen Dowd's brother in Sunday's NY Times. They're fooling themselves... again.