Clark: How about a crackdown on smackdowns?

Can you believe it? Only one week left until this flesh-eating virus of a political season is over.

That should sound comforting.

But frankly, I don’t know if I can take another six or seven days of the vile campaign attack ads that have been airing nonstop via television, radio and through the fillings in my teeth.

Go ahead. Complain all you want about the newspaper.

Sure, we have our flaws. But you can still read the paper at your own pace and supply your own soundtrack.

That’s a pretty big advantage.

It’s time the government stopped wasting money on things like turtle crossings and started wasting money on campaign overkill. Like how many vicious Dino Rossi/Patty Murray TV commercials can be safely aired before viewers close the garage door and start sucking the brown wind of death.

I think we’re close to that point, people. I really do.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, my Bose radio kicked on the other morning to …

A PUBLIC RADIO PLEDGE DRIVE!!!

Oh, God, no. Not on top of an election year.

I don’t know about your sleeping habits. But I find it comforting to wake up to the monotonous, smug drone of National Public Radio.

Then I’ll spend about 5 to 10 minutes lying in a blissful fog where I can let my mind wander about the news or plot against my editors.

But there’s nothing warm and squishy about waking up to whiny voices begging over and over again.

“Call 328-5729 or 1-800-328-5729. That’s 328-5729. Or, for those of you who didn’t hear me the last 1,209 times, I said 1-800-328…”

This is a horrible way to start the day.

When I finally made it out of bed I was grumpier than Glenn Beck at an Obama rally.

I actually thought about dialing that infernal number and making a fake $10,000 pledge on behalf of the “Juan Williams Free Speech League.”

Fortunately, my better judgment stopped me. Well, that and the thought of my name popping up on the station’s Caller ID.

But you’d think the public radio workers would have the sense to take a lesson from Spokane County Prosecutor Steve Tucker and hold off on doing anything that might tick people off until after the election.

Give Tucker credit. Not even a grizzly bear in late December can out-hibernate this guy during an election season.

For example: The prosecutor’s office made it clear. Any decision regarding possible charges stemming from the fatal police shooting of a Spokane Valley pastor must wait until after the Nov. 2 election.

Now, unfortunately, another Valley man has been shot and killed by a police officer.

Details are still sketchy. Only one thing is certain.

Tucker won’t be saying boo about it until after the election – the election of 2014, in all likelihood.

Maybe I’m imagining things. But campaign commercials seem nastier than ever this year. I doubt if voters ever learn anything from them.

There are so many attack ads and they are aired so often that the venom eventually bleeds together in a blur of belligerence.

Take Washington’s 6th District Senate candidates, Chris Marr and Michael Baumgartner, for example.

Is Marr the shameless jerk who doesn’t give a hoot about seniors? Or is Baumgartner the sleazy ex-car salesman who stuck us with $900 million in new taxes?

It’s pitiful when you can’t tell the villains apart anymore.

What’s even more exasperating is the one thing I can’t purge from my brain cells no matter how much I drink.

“Call 328-5729. Or 1-800-328-5729.”

Oh, yeah. And tell ’em Juan Williams sent you.