Over the weekend, the next to last in this year’s presidential race, we saw and listened to pundits and talk show hosts trying to make a name for themselves rather than help us learn something about the candidates, and we had our time wasted with discussion about matters that don’t, well, matter.

Take, for example, the shrill questioning of Senator Joe Biden on whether Senator Barack Obama was a Marxist over this “spreading the wealth” issue. Taxes, no matter how you cut them, redistribute wealth. That is a simple fact. The United States has had a federal income tax, off and on, since 1862.

It was collected then in the effort to cover the Union’s civil war costs. It was eliminated in 1872, revived in 1894, then declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court the following year. In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system.

Federal income tax is collected from, and then distributed among, the 50 states and U.S. protectorates as determined by Congress without regard to where that money came from or who paid it. Interestingly, there is no federal regulation or Constitutional provision that taxation be fair or equitable. Here is the 16th amendment to the United States Constitution:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

It does not, by its very nature, go back to those who paid it dollar for dollar as paid into the government, and that is why taxation is, in fact, a redistribution of wealth.

Senator John McCain has discussed amendments to the tax code during his campaign, also, and yet no one has accused him of being a “Marxist” or even raised it as an issue.

Take, for another example, the shrill condemnation of Gov. Sarah Palin’s wardrobe brouhaha. Just to set the record staight, she did not go on some Rodeo Drive spree like Julia Roberts in “Pretty Woman,” and in fact, it now seems she did not even do her own shopping. The Republican National Committee did the shopping and simply provided her with the bags of goodies.

That Gov. Palin is excoriated for it, while Senator Barack Obama is given a free pass for his tailored clothing and the luxurious private plane he bought, goes beyond unfair. Where news does not exist, it will be created by clever reporters and talking heads. Just as nature hates a vacuum and will look to fill it with something, so goes the media in the absence of real news.

Sure, Obama might have chosen his words a little more carefully, but only so as to avoid the misdirection and wasted time that has been applied to them. Taxes already redistribute wealth and have been doing so for more than a century. Sure, the RNC could have handled Palin’s clothing allowance a little smarter, but again only so as to avoid the superciliousness with which it has been criticized. Sexist? Most certainly.

Neither attacks have been fair, and neither has been substantive. Neither tells us anything about the sort of leader either candidate would be. Isn’t that what we need to know so as to make an informed decision on and the merits of voting for one over the other?

Presidential campaigns certainly have their share of silliness, and it takes a lot of focus from voters to disregard it and to find reasons to vote for a candidate in spite of it. What we hope for and what we expect from those whose duty it is to report news is some measure of fairness.  Naive to expect, of course, but these examples go beyond the pale.

What we want is for the reporters to report the news, not try to make it. What we want and need for that informed decision we all have to make next Tuesday is something other the silliness we have seen in the last few days. Stop wasting our time with the Marxist drivel and the sexist clothing “scandal.” It’s “all sound and fury, signifying nothing,” as Shakespeare wrote.