Moderators have asked candidates to directly confront the others, making perhaps for entertaining reality television but dismal examples of civility and respect.
I'll spare you the dismal examples that answer this rhetoric question, but it is clear that we are growing increasingly alienated from each other -- the opposite of the unity and brotherly love that are so vital for survival in a world where everyone depends on everyone else.
In his attacks on the dismal science, for example, the noted biologist was responding to a comment from the audience which traced part of our current environmental dilemmas to the influence of neo-classical economists.
Many surgeons created their own devices to improve the prognosis of such dismal disease, for example, no-touch approach, artery-first approach, or extensive intraoperative peritoneal lavage.
In a new line of attack, top Democrats are arguing that Mitt Romney and the Republicans, with their focus on spending cuts, are following Europe's austerity-first example, to dismal effect so far: Greece over the edge; Italy, Spain, Portugal on the edge; Britain in recession; and the United States suffering through a needlessly weak recovery because of government cuts.
But heat is only part of the problem for big cities; rising temperatures can worsen already-dismal air quality, for example, by increasing the number of high-ozone days.
She has done little to improve the state's dismal primary education system, for example.
After the dismal debut of "Gigli," for example, Ben Affleck, the film's co-star, examined its flaws publicly and at length.
But his stumbling and bumbling and his inability to chart a clear path to a better future is, frankly, just the latest example of the dismal leadership that Americans have endured for many years.
