There is not a whole lot that I actually disagree with in this Ruth Marcus column, I just wonder why she bothered to write it. Her thesis is that the Obama reelection campaign is going to be mean and nasty, and that it will focus on how dreadful his Republican opponent is and on how awful it will be if Republicans are in charge again. Admittedly, this is a bit different from “Hope and Change,” but it’s hardly inaccurate. Ms. Marcus says that Obama will be all about “fear and loathing,” but she doesn’t suggest that Obama will be distorting anyone’s record. If Obama was planning to use surrogates to go out and say that Mitt Romney is really the illegitimate son of an Indonesian muezzin who, instead of doing his Mormon missionary work, spent his time in Paris having an affair with Alain-Philippe Malagnac d’Argens de Villèle, then I might get what Marcus is driving at. That might smack of desperation. But to point out that Mitt Romney has no core and that he made his fortune screwing over ordinary American workers? Them’s the facts.

I understand that Ruth Marcus has a column to write and a deadline to meet. She must produce something. But what she produced is trite and obvious. And it lacks any balance. Has she listened to what the Republican candidates have been saying about the president? Does she think that they are running on hope and change instead of fear and loathing? And, more to the point, how are their attacks for factual accuracy? These candidates are engaged in a game of one-upmanship to see who can create the most regressive tax code, the most cruel immigration policy, the most anti-gay platform, the most environmentally unsound energy policy, the most jingoistic foreign policy, and the most anti-woman/children stance possible. Meanwhile, they do nothing but lie about the president’s record, not to mention basic everyday facts about how the world works.

Under the circumstances, it seems a little stupid to nitpick the president for hitting back.