faboo mama

There’s no recap. It sucked balls.

ABCNews needs to know how much they fucked up on this one. You can call (212) 456-7777 or email them.

It was, hands down, probably the worst excuse of a debate in all of debating history. It was through no fault of the candidates. It was purely Assclown Hijinks with Chuck Gibson and Georgie-boy. Absolutely NOTHING of substance was asked of the candidates. I came in late and was still subjected to 45 minutes of non-issue questions on Rev. Wright, bitterness and flag pins. Can you guess the bias? There was one guess on Clinton’s lying habits. She actually said something like, “People are just going to have get over my habitual lying.” Oh…that part may be an tiny exaggeration.

Okay…wanna know how bad it is? Jonah “Iraq is Going Great!” Goldberg thought it was bad. When you have me agreeing with something Goldberg writes you know it’s bad. (h/t to idredit)

I’m no leftwing blogger, but I can only imagine how furious they must be with the debate so far. Nothing on any issues. Just a lot of box-checking on how the candidates will respond to various Republican talking points come the fall. Now I think a lot of those Republican talking points are valid and legitimate. But if I were a “fighting Dem” who thinks all of these topics are despicable distractions from the “real issues,” I would find this debate to be nothing but Republican water-carrying.

The responses from viewers on ABCNews gives you a better idea of how bad it was:

Jesus Christ - are you kidding! This is the worst sham for an unbiased debate I have ever seen - FIRE STEPHANOPOLOUS and GIBSON… and by-the-way, NO multi-miliion dollar severance package - make them pay a fine for torturing americans with their insane questions

Posted by:
j50george 9:42 PM

Pathetic job, ABC. Very sad. You had a chance to cut through the crap, but you chose to wallow in it. Lapel pins? Wright? Bosnia? All that crap’s been hashed and rehashed. And millionaire Gibson whining about capital gains taxes. What a travesty.

Posted by:
Yucca333 10:15 PM

Whatever they paid them to gang up on obama i’ll double it.they should leave the debates to the REAL news networks!!!!!

Posted by:
walchrs 9:43 PM

What a terrible debate by ABC’s moderators. I guess this is why I never watch ABC News. About 30 minutes was spent on Rev. Wright, the bitter comment, and Hillary mis-speak(which was only about 5 of those 30 mins). We then had to sit through 30 minutes of commercials in a two hour program. That was pathetic ABC. PATHETIC.

Posted by:
mr_sj 10:12 PM

As The Commenter Formerly Known as NCSteve over at TPM said:

 Damn, are they running out of money again?

That’s right…the Clinton’s hate you so much they begged for another debate.  The Obama campaign, not be outdone said, “I see your Pennsylvania and raise you North Carolina.”

Two more debates.

22 debates total.

That’s ear-bleeding, zombie-turning dullness right there.  If Clinton hijacks the debate with her healthcare plan again, I hope someone gongs her ass.

Okay, the only thing that can make this sadder is that the Pennsylvania debate will be brought to us by:

And the CBS debates will be moderated by…are you sitting down?

That’s right,”never trust a fake tan and a smile” is going moderate.

Can you say, “shoot me now” boys and girls?  I knew you could.

Damn.

Double Damn.

Obama brought it. Clinton…well she looked petty. Edwards finally got himself in there.

This is going to be shortish and I’ll do another post tomorrow. I don’t know if I like this template because I can’t do a “blockquote” here and ya’ll know I quote up a storm.

Anyway.

You’ll notice democracy in action again, with Kucinich excluded from the debate. Such a shame as he bring topics to the table that Clinton almost falls over herself to usurp, even though we know she won’t do a damn thing about them. As usual.

Here’s a nutshell: Clinton did another oppo dump, Obama went upside her head, Edwards was like, “Mommy and Daddy don’t fight!”

Okay, that was biased and assholish.

It was still true. The spin coming from everywhere is posting the most quotable Obama line directed at Clinton, reminding her that he was a community organizer while she “was a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart.”

The crowd cheered. Loudly.

And that was in the first 10 minutes.

From my POV, Clinton was clearly staggered for that and she came back with:

Oh. Zing.

One. The consensus from all my post debate phone calls, blogging and IMs and that that made her looks petty. Secondly, it’s another Clinton obscuration. When I explained to people the “slumlord” thing and how she (weakly) managed to tie that to Obama, everyone started bringing up all those old Clinton scandals. Neither hold water, so you’d think Clinton would know better not to go there.

From that point on, Clinton just looked pissed. It was clear that she was trying not to, but it didn’t help. She yelled, she roared, she snapped. It was embarrassing. Again. People were asking, “Is she going to cry again?” That’s not cool. That’s not the response you want to induce in people. She trotted out her “reality check” line. She made a lot of statements that directly contradicted everything she had said in previous debates. Hell, most of her new stances aren’t even up on her website. Yet. Still, the Clinton’s do have a bad habit of saying one thing and doing something opposite of that. While she’s busy parsing Sen. Obama and Sen. Edwards votes as bad choices, she neglects to mention that 99% of the time she often voted the same way they did.

Edwards explained more of his policies, a little better, but you have to wonder where the money will come from. Naturally, he hit on the lobbyist thing again. He said that he’ll never have a lobbyist working for him. That sounds a bit unrealistic. Isn’t DC littered with lobbyists? Aren’t they like actors out here in LA? The one thing that turned me off of Edwards tonight was his, “I can go anywhere in this country and campaign. They can’t do that. I can go into the rural south.” Ugh. Shorter Edwards: Vote for me because as a white guy, I can go wherever I want to.

Really? Okay.

Obama did much better tonight than he usually does. He still gets side tracked after applause. And he. Still talks. Slow. Spit it out already! He handled the insanely insulting and stupid “Is Bill Clinton the first black president” question pretty well. I would have called that fool out his name and had some choice words for Clinton too. After all those racists attacks from the Clinton’s campaign, some black guy actually asked that question.

So that was my version of the debate. I’ll post some video and transcripts later.

Whoa! I did not expect this to happen. CNN is reporting that the NH Republican party is pulling it’s support from Sunday’s GOP debates because Fox ejected Ron Paul and Duncan Hunter from the lineup.

I’m a bit unclear how Paul was denied a spot. Fox News says:
The network said it had limited space in its studio — a souped-up bus — and that it invited candidates who had received double-digit support in recent polls.

But it seems in checking out TPMs roundup of polls that Paul is polling in 3rd place as of today, at least with Rasmussen.

Here’s some tables:

Suffolk University Tracking Poll
Daily Difference

	January 5	January 4	Percent Change
Mitt Romney	30 percent	29 percent	+1
John McCain	26 percent	25 percent	+1
Mike Huckabee	11 percent	13 percent	- 2
Rudy Giuliani	11 percent	9 percent	+2

Also from the Suffolk site:
In the Republican Primary, Romney (29 percent) led McCain (25 percent), while Iowa Caucus Republican winner Mike Huckabee (13 percent) continued to gain ground. Candidates remaining static were Rudy Giuliani (9 percent), Ron Paul (8 percent), Fred Thompson (2 percent) and Duncan Hunter (1 percent). Twelve percent were undecided.

Zogby:

Republicans – NH Tracking	1-1/4	12–31/1–3
McCain	32%	34%
Romney	30%	30%
Huckabee	12%	10%
Giuliani	9%	9%
Paul	7%	7%
Thompson	3%	2%
Hunter	<1%	1%
Undecided	7%	6%

Rasmussen:

John McCain	31%
Mitt Romney	26%
Ron Paul	14%
Mike Huckabee	11%
Rudy Giuliani	8%
Fred Thompson	5%
Some other candidate

2%

In other words, it seems that Paul is doing better on the Republican side than Thompson and Giuliani in one case, yet both of those guys were invited to the souped-up bus
debate.

What is interesting are the comment sections on news sites. The Republicans are pissed, even if they aren’t Paul supporters. They see what is happening and are upset that the media is, once again, choosing who is electable and who isn’t.

Those stone-aged, zany, torture loving Taliban GOP candidates have decided to come out of hiding and actually do the CNN/YouTube debate. You’ll remember that after the Democrats did their CNN/YouTube debate, the Taliban GOP candidates all quickly decided that having regular people ask them questions was more than they should have to deal with and all of a sudden “scheduling conflicts” arose.

If you read CNNs website, you’d be under the impression that Serious People have been doing Serious Research in filtering what questions will be shown. If you watched the Democratic debate, you’ll see that the Serious People were more interested in showing clips from people who seem to get their news from Faux, repeating old lies and distortions. Which makes this statement all the more interesting:

“This debate is to let Republican voters pick from among their eight candidates,” said David Bohrman, Washington bureau chief and senior vice president for CNN. “We are trying to focus mostly on questions where there are differences among these candidates.”

I seem to recall more than a few Republicans asking questions of the Democrats (click here for a link to all shown questions) and even looking at the submittals, I wonder how they determine how the people are registered. Very few of them claim a side, they generally go straight to their question. One can only assume from this that one of the negotiating points for the GOP candidates to actually show up, is if they get only Taliban GOP-friendly questions.

This should make for an interesting evening regardless. I know that each Taliban GOP candidate is nutso in his own special way, some of them crazy in 5 different ways, but each debate allows you to learn just how bass-ackward these dudes are. Hey, maybe tonight we’ll learn that none of those white males on stage think that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote, or people of color should be given an education.

I am so utterly disgusted with CNN and Anderson Cooper for that farce that occured last night. If you didn’t watch, you’re lucky. First of all, as I wrote on DailyKos today:

If they’re going to call these debates, then let the candidates debate. Otherwise call it what it is, Soundbite Forum. We all know that clips from these “debates” are going to wind up in ads.

1. There were a lot of submissions available on YouTube from engaged young adults. The questions were complex and revealed the people who were paying attention. Instead, CNN chose to use the simpleton questions that they probably would have asked.

2. As annoying whiny as Gravel was about not being able to speak, he had a point. When Obama or Clinton were allowed to ramble for 95 seconds and Gravel was interrupted during his 30 sec., something ain’t right.

3. The Springeresque sandbagging of Edwards was total bullshit. Edwards supporters on DailyKos have really driven me away from this man, but even I recognize a hit and that was one big time.

4. How about NOT choosing the questions with right-wing talking points. The Asian guy asking about taxes, with the GOP talking point should never had made it. I saw at least 7 intelligent posting online from young adults regarding taxes, all without right-wing frames.

5. Don’t insult the intelligence of your viewers and the candidates by having them answer stupid questions like, “Who was your favorite teacher?” or “Do your kids going to public/private school?” Those questions do NOT help us find the ideal candidate.

Usually, I get upset because the candidates do not answer the question. However, they’ve answered these stupid questions in previous “debates” and I’m glad they chose this time to expand on what they’ve already mentioned.

That being said, I can’t wait to see what they do for the Republicans. This so-called “liberal media” has lobbed nothing but softballs to Republicans for 7 years.

• Are we honestly to believe that CNN will have the Republican candidates ask questions about Katrina, getting out of Iraq, global warming and gay marriage?
• Will they have almost 20 minutes of fact-checking after the Republican debates?
• Before the debates begin, will there be a roundtable discussion with a liberal columnist, Democratic strategist, a campaign strategist, all hosted by Patt Morrison or Robert Scheer?
• How much time will they spend on picking apart Romney’s wardrobe?
• Will they have Maria Elena Salinas back to discuss Latino issues or will they have some old white guy doing it (as usual)?