Most people today have never even heard of him, but I remember Pogo. During the '50s and '60s, cartoonist Walt Kelly's weekly account of the little opossum Pogo was the most popular comic strip in America, syndicated in more than 450 newspapers.

If Pogo's remembered at all, it's for one episode created by Kelly in 1970 to mark the first Earth Day. Out for a walk in the woods to enjoy the environment, Pogo finds it almost impossible to walk because of the trash left behind by uncaring hikers. At which point, Pogo famously laments: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

It's a phrase aptly applied to litter in the 1950's. And one that the media might well apply to itself today, given what's wrong with politics and why this 2024 election is so close: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

One must always be careful to paint with a broad brush. Yes, there are some reporters who are still determined to tell the truth about him. But the main reason Donald Trump is such a political force today is the failure of the mainstream media to do its job. Instead of portraying Trump as the danger he is, they give him a pass.

Let's face it. No matter how much he complains about "fake news," Donald Trump would be nowhere today without the media. He was created by the media. He's the media's Frankenstein. He was a second-class developer from Queens until, because of his playboy lifestyle, New York gossip columnists made him a celebrity. NBC's Jeff Zucker then gave him a national platform as host of "The Apprentice," a plum post Trump held for 11 years.

We forget. That's the only reason Trump was able to win the Republican primary in 2016. Not because of any actual credentials, accomplishments, or policy positions. But only because he was a television celebrity. And, as such, cable networks carried his campaign rallies wall-to-wall, while all other candidates were lucky to get their name mentioned in the nightly news.

The media put Donald Trump in the White House. And now they're trying to help him get back in. How? Not by endorsing Trump, but in more insidious ways. By taking him seriously. By making light of or dismissing his strange and increasingly dangerous comments. And by treating him as a normal candidate.

Wrong! Donald Trump is not a normal candidate and this is not a normal presidential campaign. This is not Al Gore v. George Bush. This is not Barack Obama v. Mitt Romney. This is not a choice between two candidates, one Democrat and one Republican, who differ on policy issues but who would both operate within the bounds of our democracy framed by the Constitution.

This is entirely different, and has nothing to do with political party. It's a choice between one candidate who would uphold the Constitution and another who would ignore it. A choice between one candidate who would defend our democracy and another who would destroy it. A choice between Kamala Harris, who talks substance, and Donald Trump who talks utter nonsense. Indeed, the closer we get to Election Day, the more completely bonkers Trump gets.

In the last week alone, Trump accused Harris of wanting to ban cows and all new buildings with windows. He called her "mentally impaired," "mentally disabled," and "retarded." He promised to round up and deport 15 to 20 million people who, he says, are here illegally. He demanded that ABC and CBS lose their broadcast license. He threatened to sic the National Guard or U. S. military on those he calls "enemies from within," like former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and California Representative Adam Schiff. And he spent the first 12 minutes of a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, praising golf legend Arnold Palmer, including the size of his penis.

And how's the media responding? Either by ignoring Trump's increasingly dangerous comments or by "sane-washing" them: minimizing his whacky rhetoric to make it sound less scary.

No, no, no. With less than two weeks to go, the media must start telling the truth about Donald Trump. Stop pretending it's politics as usual. Say it out loud: These are not the statements of a normal candidate. These are the ramblings of a man who's completely unhinged and unfit for public office. As Barack Obama told a crowd in Madison, Wisconsin, this week, "You'd be worried if grandpa were acting like this." Don't let grandpa get close to the nuclear codes.

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You must admit, this is a campaign unlike any we've seen before. The incumbent Democratic president suddenly drops out and endorses his vice president. The Republican candidate survives two assassination attempts. Two back-to-back hurricanes wipe the presidential race off the front pages.

But history will show that one of the most crucial moments of the campaign is one that received little media attention. It happened on Oct. 3, when former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, once the third-highest ranking Republican in the House, walked out on stage in Ripon, Wisconsin - birthplace of the Republican Party - and endorsed Kamala Harris for president.

Cheney made it clear. She wasn't suddenly becoming a Democrat. She was endorsing Harris as a conservative Republican, confirming to the crowd in Ripon what she'd first told an audience at Duke University: "As a conservative, and someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris."

Liz Cheney's not alone. She joins former Rep. Adam Kinzinger and former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, both of whom endorsed Harris at the Democratic National Convention. Most importantly, she joins her father, former Vice President Dick Cheney, who announced he was voting for Harris because "in our nation's 248 year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump." Yes, Virginia, in this campaign, Bernie Sanders and Dick Cheney are on the same side.

Cheney also joins 100 ex-Republican members of Congress, as well as officials of the Reagan, Bush and Trump administrations who signed a joint letter endorsing Harris and claiming Trump has "contempt for the norms of decent, ethical, and lawful behavior." And leading Republicans like former Vice President Mike Pence, Sen. Mitt Romney and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan who, while not endorsing Harris, have said they will not vote for Trump.

For Kamala Harris, this is huge. First, because it's such a rare (for these days) display of political courage. Nothing triggers more verbal brickbats than criticizing a member of your own party. Second, because it's a powerful demonstration of patriotism. In essence, these Republicans are saying: "I'm an American first, a Republican second. Donald Trump's a threat to this country, so I'm putting country over party." USA! USA!

Most importantly, Dick and Liz Cheney's endorsement of Harris serves as a "permission slip" for other Republicans to do the same thing. That's the message of a powerful ad aimed at Republican voters released this week by the Lincoln Project: George W. Bush, Mitt Romney, Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney and Larry Hogan aren't voting for Donald Trump. Why should you?

In 2024, votes of disaffected Republicans may, in fact, prove to be Donald Trump's Achilles' heel, and Harris' magic wand. Back in April 2020, shortly after a group of former Republican campaign strategists launched the Lincoln Project, Steve Bannon, Trump's former aide, now in prison, warned that if they could convince only 3% to 5% of Republicans not to vote for Trump, Trump would be in trouble. They did, and he lost.

Today, they're still at it, except more so. In an interview, former top Republican campaign strategist and senior adviser to the Lincoln Project Stuart Stevens told me they've now expanded their goal to persuade 7% to 15% of Republicans not to vote for Trump, strategically targeting 900,000 Republican voters in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

This year, Stevens noted, there are three additional factors in their favor: suburban Republican women, unhappy with the Dobbs decision and the man responsible; hard-core Republican opponents of the old Soviet Union, unhappy with Trump's support for Vladimir Putin over Ukraine; and faith-based Republicans who believe character counts, unhappy with a serial adulterer paying hush money to a porn star. Stevens calls Cheney's endorsement an "accelerant" for a growing trend among Republican voters.

And that Republican outreach seems to be working. The latest New York Times/Siena College poll, released this week, found that 9% of self-described Republicans plan to vote for Kamala Harris in November - up from just 5% one month earlier.

Imagine. The woman who dared take on the king and lost her seat in Congress because of it may prove to be the key in blocking the king from returning to the throne. Shakespeare never wrote a better comedy.

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The October surprise that should decide this election

It probably didn't change that many votes, but this week's vice presidential debate offered an interesting contrast. If slick, smooth, and slippery counts over wobbly, J.D. Vance won. If truth and common sense count over total baseless assertions (Wait? Donald Trump SAVED Obamacare?), Tim Walz won.

It's just too bad CBS News didn't schedule the debate one day later, after the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith's bombshell report on the crimes committed by Donald Trump around Jan. 6. Had they done so, that debate and this election would suddenly be over. Or should be.

On Wednesday, Oct. 2, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington released a 165-page brief filed by Smith which shows in great detail how Donald Trump conspired to overthrow the results of the 2020 election, acting in his own capacity as a candidate, not as president - and for which he must be held criminally responsible.

Smith's filing, of course, is in response to the Supreme Court's hyper-partisan 6-3 ruling on July 1, requiring the lower court to decide which actions by a president might be immune from prosecution and which ones not. Refusing to accept the results of an election and attempting to undo it, Smith argues, clearly are not.

"The defendant asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct," Smith writes at the top of his brief. "Not so. Although the defendant was the incumbent president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one."

We've seen much of the evidence in Smith's brief before - much of it mirrors the final report of the Special House Committee on Jan. 6- but there's also a lot of new stuff. Never has Trump's role to overturn the election - before, during, and after January 6 - been so clearly laid out.

At the White House on Jan. 6, when an aide told him that Vice President Mike Pence's life was in danger at the Capitol, Trump replied: "So what?" In an Oval Office meeting, when one of his lawyers told him his claims of widespread voter fraud would not hold up in court, Trump fired back: "The details don't matter." On Air Force One after the election, Trump was heard telling members of his family: "It doesn't matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell."

For the first time, Smith details nine different post-election meetings or phone calls Pence had with Trump in which the vice president informed Trump there was no evidence of massive fraud and urged him to accept reality. He encouraged Trump "not to look at the election as a loss - just an intermission." To which Trump replied: "I don't know, 2024 is so far off."

Smith goes on to chronicle everything Trump did to undermine the election and our democracy: claiming ahead of time the election was rigged; refusing to say he'd accept the outcome of the election; declaring he'd won before the votes were counted; falsely claiming massive fraud; calling up state election officials and strong-arming them to falsify vote totals; sending his goon squad of lawyers out to file (and lose) some 60 lawsuits alleging voter fraud; and pressuring his vice president to reject the Electoral College count submitted and certified by all 50 states.

All of which culminated in Trump's summoning his supporters to Washington on Jan. 6, speaking at a campaign rally and urging the armed mob to march on the Capitol, then standing by and doing nothing while they stormed the Capitol and sent lawmakers running for their lives.

Trump took none of those actions in his capacity as president, Smith reminds us. It was all the work of a losing candidate, acting purely in his own interest, willing to do anything, even break the law, to cling to the presidency. "At its core," Smith concludes, "the defendant's scheme was a private criminal effort. In his capacity as a candidate he used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process."

And that should settle it once and for all. No other issue matters. Donald Trump committed treason. He used the powers of the presidency to try to overturn an election and destroy our democracy. That alone should disqualify him from ever running for office again. He should be in jail. The fact that so many Americans still support him is a stain on the soul of this nation.

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