This morning, I woke up still pissed at the farce that happened in Philadelphia last night. As I mentioned in my previous post, there was nothing of substance touched on in the two hour commercial laden gang up on Sen. Obama last night. I see Clinton supporters who whined when Obama and Edwards “ganged” up on Clinton in New Hampshire, actually say that last night’s debates were fair and refreshing. Yeah…for the GOP. The comments on ABCNews website has reached over 14000 and most of them were negative. The blogosphere is abuzz with the Disaster in Philadelphia and even the MSM is collectively shaking its head.
Over at Booman Tribune, StevenD did the hard work I was just starting; going through the transcripts to summarize last night’s quesions:
1. Will you offer loser the VP – Gibson (G)
2. Obama’s “bitter” comment – G
3. Can Obama beat McCain (to Clinton) – Stephanopoulus (S)
4. Can Clinton win (to Obama) – S
5. Wright question (to Obama) – G
6. Wright question (to Clinton) – G
7. Several Wright questions (to Obama) – S
8. Why don’t people trust you/ Tuzla question (to Clinton) – S
9. Has Clinton been truthful (to Obama) – S
10. Flag question/patriotism (to Obama) – G
11. Flag question/patriotism/Ayers (to Obama) – S
12. Questions on Plan to get out of Iraq (to both) – G
13. Iran questions re attack on Israel (to both) – S
14. Economy questions (Will you raise taxes?) (to both) – S
15. Raise Capital Gains Tax questions (to both) – G
16. Soc. Sec. Taxes (to Obama) – G
17. Guns/2nd Amend. Questions (to both) – G
18. Affirmative Action question (to both) –S
19. Gas Prices/Energy policy questions (to both) – G
20. How would you use Dubya as advisor/other role (to both) – G
21. Undecided Superdelegate question (to both) – G
Do you see anything of any importance to the average American there? It wasn’t until about maybe 90 minutes into the 2 hour debate that George Stephanopolous said:
Let me turn to the economy. That is the No. 1 issue on Americans’ minds right now.
Then it was about taxes and we got to learn that Charles Gibson who proved his cluelessness on income levels of professors back in January, told us that people making $200K a year were middle class. We were also subjected to Gibson’s elitism that the average American cares or will be affected by captial gains tax. Gibson acts as if these debates were his personal interview with the candidates and screw the rest of us, he spent an inordinate amount of time debated Obama, while letting Clinton’s answers slide. He failed, once again, as a moderator.
Charles Gibson, also decided that editorializing was fair game. In a question regarding guns directed toward Sen. Clinton he said:
GIBSON: Well, with all due respect, I’m not sure I got an answer from Senator Obama, but do you still favor licensing and registration of handguns?
This was minutes after Obama had, in fact, answered the question and Clinton and Stephanopolous had a back and forth. It could be that Gibson’s inherent and obvious dislike of Obama denied him the ability to hear anything the Senator said. Maybe it’s the simple fact that when you keep interrupting a person when they’re trying to answer you, it proves that you’re not really listening.
I mentioned in my previous post that this debate was such a joke that it had me agreeing with Jonah Goldberg. No one makes me agree with Goldberg without reprecussions. Last night, Tom Shales posted on Washington Post an article titled: In Pa. Debate, The Clear Loser Is ABC. I recommend you read the entire article, but let me share you some snippets:
For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.
snip
Obama was right on the money when he complained about the campaign being bogged down in media-driven inanities and obsessiveness over any misstatement a candidate might make along the way, whether in a speech or while being eavesdropped upon by the opposition. The tactic has been to “take one statement and beat it to death,” he said.
No sooner was that said than Gibson brought up, yet again, the controversial ravings of the pastor at a church attended by Obama. “Charlie, I’ve discussed this,” he said, and indeed he has, ad infinitum. If he tried to avoid repeating himself when clarifying his position, the networks would accuse him of changing his story, or changing his tune, or some other baloney.
snip
To this observer, ABC’s coverage seemed slanted against Obama. The director cut several times to reaction shots of such Clinton supporters as her daughter, Chelsea, who sat in the audience at the Kimmel Theater in Philly’s National Constitution Center. Obama supporters did not get equal screen time, giving the impression that there weren’t any in the hall. The director also clumsily chose to pan the audience at the very start of the debate, when the candidates made their opening statements, so Obama and Clinton were barely seen before the first commercial break.
Newsday writes:
The morning after the latest Democratic debate, the talk doesn’t seem to be about which candidate — New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton or Illinois Sen. Barack Obama — would make a more-formidable foe to run against Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain.
The talk seems to be about which of the two ABC News moderators — Charles Gibson or George Stephanopoulos — did the worst job, which one was sillier in Philadelphia.
Will Bunch wrote an open letter to the two hosts of last night’s debacle:
With your performance tonight — your focus on issues that were at best trivial wastes of valuable airtime and at worst restatements of right-wing falsehoods, punctuated by inane “issue” questions that in no way resembled the real world concerns of American voters — you disgraced my profession of journalism, and, by association, me and a lot of hard-working colleagues who do still try to ferret out the truth, rather than worry about who can give us the best deal on our capital gains taxes. But it’s even worse than that. By so badly botching arguably the most critical debate of such an important election, in a time of both war and economic misery, you disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself. Indeed, if I were a citizen of one of those nations where America is seeking to “export democracy,” and I had watched the debate, I probably would have said, “no thank you.” Because that was no way to promote democracy.
And that’s just a small sampling. You know it’s bad when USAToday, the tabloid that seems to focus of the news of 8 months ago, has a current roundup of criticisms on their pages.
You’ll note the recurrent themes. The candidates themselves were mere props on the stage. To ask who won or lost last night’s “debates” is to ask the wrong question. Neither candidate shined, though the focus group said that Clinton one. Odd one that, since the only time they responded really postively toward her was when she told a joke that didn’t sound scripted. Naturally, the Clinton’s are using that clip as a promo piece. Otherwise, a simple scanning of the transcripts show that Obama’s answers to the most inane questions were intelligent and clear. The focus group responded overwhelming positive to his answers, so it was curious that only 5 of the 22 people thought he won the debate.
It has been estimated that over 10M watched last night’s debates, making it the most watched debate this season. 10 million Americans who care what the next President of the United States has to say and as StevenD mentioned, they didn’t touch on any of the important questions:
Global Warming, New Orleans Reconstruction, Health Care, Veterans Benefits (New GI Bill or Health Benefits), Defense Spending, National Debt, Trade Issues, Environmental issues (not about global warming), Regulatory Agency scandals and problems, Financial markets, Worldwide Food Crisis, Darfur, Pakistan, Somalia, North Korea, NATO, Russia, China, Nigeria, Venezuela, Drugs, Unemployment, Mortgage crisis, Bush administration Crimes and Scandals, Torture, Guantanamo Bay and other detention facilities, Loss of Civil Rights (Electronic surveillance, FISA, Habeas Corpus), Infrastructure issues, Gay Rights, Race (except as it came up re: Reverend Wright), Immigration
Last night’s debate forces us the understand how vested the powers that be are in keeping us uninformed. They say that Americans are turned off of politics, it was the disgusting behaviors of the two “moderators” that turn us off, not necessarily the candidates themselves. ABC, once again, put on a show for the corporate masters and the rest of us could only watch from the cheap seats.
