Bob Franken: Our Cheapened Instincts

What's most pathetic about the presidential campaign is how it's becoming little more than a battle between cheap-shot artists. Each day brings a new limbo contest, as they all compete to see how low they can go. Take, for instance, the ridiculous heckling by various Republicans because President Barack Obama and other Democrats don't want to describe the brutal ISIS terrorists as manifestations of "radical Islam."

The administration avoids the term because it casts the United States as an enemy of Muslims, which we make believe we are not. Many of the GOP candidates don't even bother pretendi...