on "moyers & company" -- >> radical obama-care >> analysis with our master media decoder, kathleen hall jamieson. >> attack is healthy, it helps us see the weakness in these candidates. the problem occurs when only one side has the money to attack, but nonetheless it's not bad to have attack in politics. it's bad to have inaccurate attack. >> and rita dove, and the poems that tell the story of america. >> suddenly there were these voices that came out. ordinary, town folk voices. and what he says in this poem is that, where are these voices. do they disappear? do they disappear when we shut the book? >> welcome. if you like to watch tv but live in a state that has endured one of this year's primaries or caucuses, you have our sincere condolences. how you are coping with those endless hours of attack ads is beyond us. nasty accusations, distortions, outright lies. those ads will turn anyone's words against them -- even honest abe -- >>> has president lincoln, given up? at a speech in pennsylvania, he even refused to dedicate a battlefield, still fresh with the blood of tens of thousands of union

from the annenberg public policy center at the university of pennsylvania, the director is kathleen hall jamieson. faithful followers of our programs over the years know that she is our master media decoder, so i've asked her to join me this week for a look at the campaign so far. she is the author of many books including her latest, "the obama victory: how media, money, and message shaped the 2008 election." it's co-authored with kate kenski and bruce w. hardy. kathleen, welcome. >> thank you. >> we've been doing this a long time. >> certainly, we have. >> twenty years or more is-right? all right, so here we are. have you ever seen a meaner campaign? >> i've seen campaigns that i thought were mean. i've seen campaigns that i thought were deceptive and irrelevant to governance. i haven't seen a primary campaign that this early in the season has done so much damage to candidates from whom we will select a republican nominee. and i worry a great deal about what that means for the general election. >> there has been a lower turnout than everyone expected this year and a real drop-off in states, in v

on "moyers & company" -- >> radical obama-care >> analysis with our master media decoder, kathleen hall jamieson>> attack is healthy, it helps us see the weakness in these candidates. the problem occurs when only one side has the money to attack, but nonetheless it's not bad to

on "moyers & company" -- >> radical obama-care >> analysis with our master media decoder, kathleen hall jamieson >> attack is healthy, it helps us see the weakness in these candidates. the problem occurs when only one side has the money to attack, but nonetheless it's not bad to

. >> analysis with our master media decoder, kathleen hall jamieson.and -- >> it's been a really grand experiment that has in sort of neo-liberal economics, the trickle down experiment, my generation were the guinea pigs, and that experiment has absolutely failed if the aim was to produce greater prosperity for america. >> meanwhile, go to our website, billmoyers.com. you can take quizzes created by jonathan haidt and his team to see how your moral compass lines up. that's at billmoyers.com. see you there and see you here, next time. a