Thirty six minutes into the debate, my wife says I can turn on the Red Sox game. "They are not asking them anything about anything that matters," she says.
Amen.
We've revisted bitter. We've gone back to Bosnia. We've dragged Rev. Wright back up onto the podium. We've mis-spent this debate by allowing Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos to ask questions that skirt what in my mind is what we need to know now.
What would they do about the mess they'd inherit? The war. Health care. The economy. Stupid.
...
Morning after update. Looks like the inanity went on for 52 minutes. Tom Shales in the Washington Post argued that the 2-hour commercials-crammed debate began with Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelling:
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.
He called the broadcast "shoddy and despicable."
Downstairs at Attytood, Will Bunch wrote an open letter to the network anchors once he got his hands to stop shaking in anger:
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.
Meanwhile vox pop is going strong at ABC.com, where 12,560 people had commented by 10:10 a.m. A sampling:
With Life & Death issues on the table for this election ABC thinks Flag Pins, 60's radicals, Elitism, and religion are the main issues.. Ever wonder why Network News is losing market share? People without Health Insurance Die, Soldiers in Iraq die, Food cost have risen 11% in a month, Food Riots in Haiti, What was George thinking? Gas Prices at my filling station have risen 6 cents a week for the last 3 months and refiners are cutting production? Please tell me that there was something besides Lies about Bosnia that are relevant to me! Dang it!! I'm sinking with rising prices a falling dollar, and everything I own is worth less today than it was yesterday.. Please Tell me that you could have found something to talk about besides God Guns and Israel..
Did anyone like the debate? Over at the National Review, Stephen Spruiell did. He said issues like the environment, interrogation and health care were properly shunned.
ABC’s debate was a success because it steered clear of issues like these, i.e. issues on which the candidates mostly agree. How many times have we heard Clinton and Obama argue endlessly over what amounts to a very minor difference in their health-care plans?
Its the same reason your paper puts certain stories on the front page, to get ratings! Don't you remember, all of us "typical white people" are "bitter" and only care about the unimportant issues.— Steak- Amen.— Wolfgang
- Sure Steak, only white people care about the future of our country and are watching this "debate." If so, just goes to show how stupid they think you are.— tightlines
- Ms. Tightlines, if you were intelligent you would have realized I was critizing the paper for the same thing Mr. Rubin was criticizing ABC for.— Steak
- That was a travesty. Of course, what should we expect from a news organization run by Disney except for cheap entertainment?— Sweatheart
- That "debate" was a travesty. It was an obvious setup. I wouldn't be surprised if georgie and clinton and sean h got together to work out the questions together. clinton seemed prepared for the Ayers question as if she knew it was coming.— jimmbarr
- That was by far the best debate of the entire primary season. Thank you ABC for your professionalism. It is time for CNN and MSNBC to start taking notes about how a debate is moderated. Huge kudos to ABC's job with the debate. ABC Hits a home run in debate coverage Paul F. Villarreal VillarrealSports.com— Paul F. Villarreal
- It was a planned assassination of the character of a beautiful human being by a bitter woman as her last stand. she is aware that she can not win on her own merit, because she has non. So she figures if she assassinates the character of her competitor, that would be her only chance to win. Obama represents GOOd and the Clintons represent EVIL. and it shows.We the American people had a chance to see this painful attack on Obamas character with astonihment and we are going to support Obama with furor and the conviction that we made the right choice.— sonia lunden
- This is a great post, Dan, and my sentiments exactly -- great to see that Blinq is cruising on all four cylindars again!— will
- I wanted to hear Hillary Clinton's $800,000 deal that Bill Clinton hooked when the Columbian government paid Clinton $800,000.00 to lobby US Senators, like his wife, for FREE TRADE with Columbia. BTW: Hillary never wears a US Flag on her jacket ... why all the focus on Obama for that. Hillary wears pants and a suit jacket almost every day and never dons a US Flag pin. ABC did a lousy job last night ... fire George & Charlie— Get_Real
- Every time I read about wearing U.S. flags, I think of my cousin Bobby, who used to warn me when I was a boy that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Samuel Johnson's quote attacked false patriotism, as did Bobby, who earned two Purple Hearts in World War II.— drubin
- Dear sonia: Obama is a beautiful human being who represents good? Either you don't much about about true beauty and goodness, or your liberal guilt got the better of you. To help you see things a mite more clearly, read this quote by Ann Coulter concerning the Boy Blunder's audience in San Francisco when he made remarks about rural Americans: "We don't know much about Obama's audience, other than that four fundraisers were held on April 6 at the homes of San Francisco's rich and mighty, such as Alex Mehran, an Iranian who went into daddy's business and married an IBM heiress, and Gordon Getty, heir to the Getty Oil fortune." Interesting, huh? Especially the part about the Iranian. Yet nary a peep from the media. Do you still think he is beautiful human being who stands for good?— George Tomezsko
Comment removed.- John Kerry lost election over being "voting for the war before voting against it", "swift boated over most heroic action in his life in Vietnam". Al Gore was "portrayed at inventing internet, a claim he never made", "for visiting buddish shrine" Now we are supposed to put forward a candidate whose mentor and inspiration for 20 years say "God D*** American", "Americ got what he deserved on 9/11". A candidate whole friend for years say "my only mistake was not putting in enough bomb to blow up whole pentagon after 9/11" And the candidate say "all religous people and run owner are "macaca"— Seed
- The National Review writer has it correct. Dems need to see how these candidates would fare in a general election type debate - not the 80th re-hash of whether people would have $20 or $30 co-pay under a nationalized health system.— Scholes
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