abor Day this year was a very nice opportunity for me to reprise the work I have been doing for CBS at radio station KNX. In the newsroom they referred to it as "Mount Jackson Day"; nearly all the conversations I've conducted since joining the team were replayed. I'd like to thank the many who took the trouble to tell me how they felt about what they heard from politicians and film stars, authors and generals, economists and scientists. It struck me, upon reflection,that I've been missing hearing from so many of the movers and shakers in our society, since the rise of the hard-edged, one-sided, "the host is more important than the guest" era of talk show hosts. KNX has always had the right approach to information and entertainment and I am honored to be part of the team.
Looking to the week ahead the guest roster includes the former Governor of New York State, Cuomo , the son of the late President Reagan, Ronald Reagan Jr., the former head of the New England Journal of Medicine, (a doctor who has a most powerful argument to make against the drug industry), ABC Nightline's Ted Koppel and others. In the weeks ahead it is our hope and aim to have the presidential candidates be with us.
Topic One....The Debates.
Now word has it that the president will grant the challenger and the nation no more than two encounters; just two debates. That is unfair and certainly insufficient. To be frank, the stilted format of what we're offered does very little to test the metal and message of the combatants. Every possible question has been pre-tried with answers rehearsed and even cute replies or stern rejoinders prepared.
What we need and deserve, we'll never get...but it sure would be fun.
No panel of journalists, just a moderator to referee and send them back to a neutral corner when things get too rough. They should have, minimally, two hour affairs where they can have at it with no holds barred. Some would be bruised and battered ...presidential and vice-presidential candidates, but it would show us a lot more than we're going to learn from 2 x 1 hour, with a panel of questioners and an auditorium of partisans.

Flip-Flopper Jackson:...On the other hand, to those who claim that the face-to-face meeting is other than decisive, I would simply remind them of the occasions when Nixon, the front-running favorite, met his match in John F. Kennedy, the newcomer to the national arena. To those who listened to the broadcast on radio either gave the event to Nixon or cast it as a tie. To those who watched on TV, JFK won hands down. For those who are convinced that Sen.John Kerry can bury Mr.Bush, with his far greater debating and linguistic skills, let me remind them that Vice President Al Gore was certainly cleverer and more knowledgeable than candidate Bush, yet Bush did an admirable job of helping Mr.Gore bury himself in the debates.
In the past few days the spotlight of the world's attention has been elsewhere; our election and the ferocity of the campaign has played second fiddle to hurricane Frances, to the sadness, madness and fanaticism of the Russian hostage crisis, to President Clinton's heart surgery and the rising death toll of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The next 7 weeks until election day are going to be the roughest in memory and I pray that Vice President Cheney's hint that a vote for the Kerry Edwards ticket will likely cause a further disastrous attack on this country, not be repeated...but I don't put it past him. To use fear so blatantly to win votes is disgusting. The economy might well offer the best line of attack for John Kerry, but the Democrats should know that he can't afford to cede the Iraq debate to Bush.