Propaganda, media manipulation - You just witnessed it in brilliant fashion

[mudesi]

This is how they do it, ladies and gentlemen.

Fill a live audience with Republicans. Feed the questions to the Republican candidate beforehand. Make the Democrat go first so that the Republican candidate is the last one people remember. Ask softball questions that only Republicans care about, and more importantly, frame them with an inherent assumption that the Republican viewpoint is the superior one. (At what point does a baby have rights? Does evil exist? Define rich?)

This entire charade was explicitly designed to put Obama on the defensive at first, and then to have McCain follow and look like an enlightened savior of the morally superior.


This is how they do it, people. Every gullible low information voter out there who watched this nonsense was psychologically manipulated to favor John McCain tonight.

This is how they do it.

[marylanddem]

1. Sickening, sickening, sickening. I'm afraid you're right.

[Middle finga]

2. The trap could have been avoided by turning down the

invitation. Why continue to chase after a group of voters that still support Bush in high numbers.

[IndependentDem]

3. don't forget about the pundits afterwards...

making it seem like Obama lost because his answers were intellectual.

I HATE THE MEDIA!!!

[alfredo]

4. How many were willing to sit around for two hours? Obama did no harm,

and got a standing ovation at the end. I didn't watch all of McCain, but he seemed to rely on talking points. Obama seemed more comfortable, and more into the conversation.

McCain came off more partisan.

this was a good answer by Obama

"We still don't abide by that basic precept of Matthew: Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me," Obama said.


BTW, I'm Atheist.

[Alameda]

5. I particularly found the off shore drilling thing interesting

like we are going to benefit from it anytime soon?

[TexasObserver]

6. Ooo-ooo that smell. Can't you smell that smell?

Yep, it stinks to high HEAVEN, this fraud from start to finish.

Set up.

McCain had questions far ahead of time. Was prepped. Canned answers with punch and stories.

Meanwhile, Obama shows up and actually answers questions in a conversational manner, clearly without fore knowledge. The tip off was the way McCain pounced on questions. "Oh boy, this is the one where I say 'at conception!'"

[Lorien]

7. Do we think the debates will be any different? n/t

[DemBones DemBones]

10. Come on! A candidate has to be prepared for any possible question

s/he and his/her advisers can think of. They practice answering these questions over and over. Or they should.

Maybe Obama didn't prep. Maybe McCain didn't, either, but he has been in the Senate for decades and run for president before so he's had a lot of practice with this sort of thing. He's often on the Sunday news shows when not running for office, may not have to prep.

You can't seriously believe that McCain has never before been asked "When does life begin?" Or that he's never been asked any imaginable question about SCOTUS.

If you agree to be asked questions by a conservative preacher, you should know what to expect. If you don't, you should have an adviser who can tell you.

[windoe]

8. What happened to my country and where did all the journalists go?

Wake me up when we leave the twilight zone.

[DemBones DemBones]

9. There was a coin toss to determine who went first.

How did "they" do anything?

Obama won't do townhall debates with McCain and he refused to do more already-scheduled debates with Hillary Clinton after he did badly in the ABC debate with her, but he agreed to be interviewed by this Rick Warren, apparently thinking that he could get evangelical and fundamentalist votes by doing so.

He should have known it would be an audience of people who attend Saddleback Church. He should have known the questions would be framed from a conservative perspective and that his answers would not agree with their worldview. You can't blame Rick Warren or CNN for broadcasting it. Obama did this to himself.

From what I've seen, he doesn't do well without either a teleprompter, or someone to speak first whose answers he can build on, as in "As Hillary said, I think. . ."

So why did he do this?