BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

“This is a political stunt.”

That was the analysis of Meet the Press host David Gregory, who was summoned to the anchor desk on the NBC Nightly News August 17, to offer more incisive in-depth coverage of what everyone in America was anguishing over, the Romney and Ryan tax returns.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had taken the podium on the Senate Floor a week or so earlier and accused Mitt Romney of not paying income taxes for 10 years. It is reasonable to assume that Reid deliberately lied about Romney’s taxes in a silly attempt to goad him into releasing tax returns for those 10 years.

Gregory was close, but he didn’t get it quite right. What we were witnessing was not a stunt, but a political disgrace.

The next day, Washington Post editorial writers finally tippy-toed into the broader question of the quality of the Presidential campaign, calling it, of all things, “unbecoming.”

Unbecoming, you say? My, my. The picture of Prince Harry in his birthday suit was unbecoming. This campaign is a long way from unbecoming. Since the Romney taxes were in every headline, we have seen ads accusing Romney of contributing to the death of a woman and we have been awash in nonsensical coverage of a nonsensical statement by a nonsensical and inconsequential politician from Missouri. And most recently, Gov. Romney made a stupid joke about birth certificates and you would have thought Iran launched a nuclear warhead.

The 2012 campaign is already  among the worst in American history, capping off ( I hope) more than a decade of steady decline in the partisan nature of our politics, the quality of governing and the level of personal, social and political civility at the core of how we make decisions. It is a mêlée of spitting, shoving, hitting, scratching, biting, kicking, backstabbing, lying, cheating, deceiving and most other forms of juvenile behavior, reminiscent of those stranded youth in Lord of the Flies.

Unbecoming?

When the race is finished, we will likely have elected officeholders who, like their predecessors, will be unable to govern because of the destructive, divisive and paralyzing nature of our elective process. We will enter into another cycle of governing in which nothing gets done and there is little or no distinction between campaign politics and governance. It has become a cancer that continues to grow unabated and untreated, as though it really has no lethal effect. But it does and it must be treated.

There are at least four fundamental faults in the elective process that need immediate attention: The downward cycle of campaign behavior, the abuse of our institutions of government, the media coverage, and the contradictory and complacent nature of the voters themselves.

The first and most crucial issue is the behavior of the candidates and their surrogates. The country hasn’t had to endure this level of vicious character assassinations, lies, innuendo, deceit and deception since enemies of Andrew Jackson accused his wife, Rachel, of being a whore and a bigamist in 1828.

In just the last month, not only has Mitt Romney been accused of complicity in the death of a woman. He has been accused of lying about his time at Bain Capital or committing a felony by filing false SEC documents. He has been accused of tax evasion, racism, belonging to a cult, and, worst of all, animal abuse.

Vice President Biden, speaking to a predominantly black audience we are told, said Romney wants to put “y’all back in chains.”

President Obama is still enduring questions and now jokes about where he was born and he is accused of harboring a terrorist sympathizer in the State Department.

The behavior of President Obama, his staff and surrogates is particularly egregious, because he promised us something far different four years ago. He said the only candidates who engage in that kind of behavior are those who have no record to stand on. How prophetic. Their actions are also infuriating because they have become so persistent and so defiantly arrogant.

President Obama for three years has embraced an operating style that comes across as righteous empowerment, in executive orders, stalemates with Congress and now in the art of the campaign. It is as though the end really does justify any means and there is no right or wrong as long as the mission is served.

He is the American political icon of postmodernism. The Wall Street Journal described it August 9, as a “literary theory that rejects objective reality and insists instead that everything is a matter of interpretation and relative ‘truth’.

A Republican strategist last month said at a gathering that there is no lying in politics; it is what he called factual ‘selectivity’. Where are the Catholic nuns when you need them? Get out the yardstick and place your hands on the desk, palms down fingers outstretched. You’re about to feel the effects of factual selectivity.

What is occurring in this campaign is not interpretive dance, nor is it interpretative writing. It is unacceptable and inexcusable behavior, particularly from men and women to whom we have afforded one of the highest forms of identification in the land, a White House pass.

The attacks must stop and there is only one group of people who can stop them–the public. But the public must first come to terms with the fact that this isn’t reality television that has no consequences. The public must realize they are being entertained and manipulated at a very high cost to themselves.

The people can turn off the ads and light a fire under television stations that run them. They can quit contributing to campaigns or raise the issue of civility at campaign events. They can scold candidates on the stump. They can refuse to vote for any candidate engaging in that kind of behavior. They can get on the back of the media for promoting it and encouraging it. They can write letters and make their feelings known in cyberspace. They can organize their neighbors and their churches.

Benjamin Franklin, no stranger to political chicanery and deception, told a woman outside Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1787 that the constitutional convention delegates had given the new nation a Republic, but he reminded her, if that it is only good for as long as we, the people, can keep it. He was right. You don’t like it, you’ll have to do something about it yourself, because the politicians won’t unless they are pressured to and the media won’t unless you take away the profit motive that makes them behave as bad as the politicians.

(Next:  Part II, the three other faults)

Editor’s Note: Mike Johnson is a former journalist, who worked on the Ford White House staff and served as press secretary and chief of staff to House Republican Leader Bob Michel, prior to entering the private sector. He is co-author of a book, Surviving Congress, a guide for congressional staff. He is currently a principal with the OB-C Group.