ABC's Pseudo-Debate (TPM)

[NYCGirl]

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/04/abcs-pseudodebate.php

The ABC debate in Philadelphia was a travesty. If debates are meant to showcase candidates as they discuss the issues, this one failed. If debates are meant to enlighten the electorate on the issues, this one failed. The primary issue debated last night was Senator Obama's electability, a subject that is both patronizing and demeaning. Only voters can determine electability, not pundits and certainly not competing candidates. But ABC would rather appear naive than cynical and manipulative.

We like to think that presidential debates descend from Abraham Lincoln's senatorial campaign against Stephen Douglass. In 1961, the historian Daniel Boorstin argued that they really stemmed from the television quiz show. After last night's debate, I am inclined to agree with him.

ABC created a debate that was part "Fear Factor" and part "The Moment of Truth." All that was need was to have the contestants wired to machinery so we could monitor their pulse and sweat glads as they answered inane questions about whether they would choose the other contestant as a running mate (and then, bizarrely!) whether they were trustworthy. Such questions were not designed to produce meaningful answers; they were designed to make the contestants fidget and sweat. "Let's see how they can get out of this one, George!"

Even more damaging were questions designed to box the candidates into a specific position that they might later regret -- income taxes, the date for troop withdrawals, the rate of capital gains taxes. All these presume that governance takes place outside of history, that it is merely a question of executive fiat. Unlike our current president (who has been blinded by his righteousness for decades), good leaders know how to adapt to circumstances. Not content to focus simply on today's gotcha politics, ABC wanted to make sure that there would be plenty of gotchas down the line. Way to go guys, that's true citizen journalism.

Hillary Clinton clearly won last night's contest. She was more eager to gobble up seven spiders and crawl across a ton of Mongolian leeches than Barack Obama. Good for her. If the moderators had asked her, she might have downed a couple shots of Crown Royal and flashed her breasts in order to get the Girls Gone Wild vote.

I can't imagine last night's election will influence Tuesday's vote a great deal. It was demeaning all the way around. But at the very least, Hillary deserves $50,000 and a set of new patio furniture. Obama will have to settle for the participation prize, debates with John McCain.

[NYCGirl]

1. Kick

[crankychatter]

2. k/r and I'll say it again

The "debate" was Fritz the Cat level Political Pornography

Adjacent to the Constitution, an OBSCENITY

Rendell probably went home and Pastorbated that evening

disgusting