Hillary-Obama debate

[Shinova]

Why do they even pretend to be legitimate journalists?

Well, there's the fact that the people aren't educated or motivated enough to notice and make a row about it.

[Masami von Weizegger]

Why do they even pretend to be legitimate journalists?

Because millions of people are more than prepared to go along with the illusion and let this impact on who'll they vote for anyway?

[K. A. Pital]

Flag fucking pins? Not again. I thought it's ... dead. Apparently the wonderful flag pin tradition is very important.

[Darth Wong]

Rebecca said she is very concerned that Hillary will win. Not so much concerned in the selfish sense that Hillary will do anything to Canada, but concerned in the sense that it will confirm her suspicion that democracy is flat-lining in America. Obama came in, tried the defibrillator, and the near-corpse's handlers are pushing him away.

"Democracy is when you say what you want, and do as you're told." (I wish I could remember who said this; it's a great quote).

[FSTargetDrone]

Flag fucking pins? Not again. I thought it's ... dead. Apparently the wonderful flag pin tradition is very important.

It's only important to those who insist that it's somehow natural, essential, hell, expected that politicians wear them. I just want Obama to say, "Flag pins? Are you serious? We have people dying and you're worried about my accessorizing?"

And what's kind of funny about this is that a few of these pro-flag pin types have been caught without them.

[FSTargetDrone]

"Democracy is when you say what you want, and do as you're told." (I wish I could remember who said this; it's a great quote).

Is this what you were thinking of?

"Democracy: In which you say what you like and do what you're told."

It's a paraphrase of Dave Barry (near the bottom of the page). Closest I could find, at any rate.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

That ridiculous debate was pointless. It was nothing more than who's the better demagogue. Is this all that the Primary stands for? Sheesh...

[Fire Fly]

Well that "debate" was the single worse one I've seen yet, Democratic or Republican. They devoted a huge chunk of time to discussing non-issues that were meant to shitboat Obama. Given the idiotic line of questions those idiot moderators were throwing out, I was starting to expect them to ask if Obama was a Muslim. Utterly disgusting; I've grown to completely hate the American media so much in these last few years. The only solace in journalistic integrity I can find now is Bill Moyers and NPR.

[Durandal]

Rebecca said she is very concerned that Hillary will win. Not so much concerned in the selfish sense that Hillary will do anything to Canada, but concerned in the sense that it will confirm her suspicion that democracy is flat-lining in America. Obama came in, tried the defibrillator, and the near-corpse's handlers are pushing him away.

"Democracy is when you say what you want, and do as you're told." (I wish I could remember who said this; it's a great quote).

I have the exact same fear. I really do shudder to think what would happen if Obama was smacked down by the Democratic establishment or by the country in general should he go onto the general election. It would represent a wholesale rejection of the best opportunity to break free of politics as usual, and Obama's supporters would be devastated. I would be devastated. Frankly, I don't know what I'd do if he lost. I'd probably get even more jaded and cynical and just stop voting.

Obama's given me a reason to believe in my government. I'm tired of crusty old white guys, and if he, a young (relatively), charismatic, intelligent and articulate man, can't be the first black president, then I can't think of anyone who could.

[K. A. Pital]

If Obama was from SD.net he would've cut the pin issue with: "What, flag pins? They look like Kim Jong Il pins to me" of course that would ruin his political chances probably. But that's what I'd say in his place. I can't believe how much bullshit thrown on him he's got to handle every day.

[Guardsman Bass]

To be fair, they did start hitting them on some actual issues later on. It was interesting to see their reactions on gun control; both generally were pro-gun control in the past, but have played up their "cred" to potential gun-owning voters as of late.

[Tiriol]

That debate was a travesty. Even Ed rendell said it was lopsided in the first 40 min (more like first hour I think). The saddest part is now it seems like everyone news stations are interviewing are saying Hillary won.

Well, of course it's going to look like that. All she had to do was sit back and go with it as they hammered Obama on every contact he's ever had and his stupid flag pin.

That's what one of the Finnish daily newspapers, Iltalehti, reported here (link in Finnish, unfortunately, but the crust is that Obama supposedly stumbled badly in a television interview). Many of the foreign newspapers use US newspapers as sources of information, so such "news" get spread far and wide.

A poor man's edit: I confused Iltalehti with Iltasanomat, two similar daily newspapers. This is Iltalehti's article about Obama-Hillary debate and manages to be more neutral and matter-of-fact style.

[Glocksman]

To be fair, they did start hitting them on some actual issues later on. It was interesting to see their reactions on gun control; both generally were pro-gun control in the past, but have played up their "cred" to potential gun-owning voters as of late.

I didn't watch the 'debate', but that's not surprising.
Gun control is one of the issues in which support is 'a mile wide, but an inch deep'.
IOW, while a lot of people when asked will state they support gun control, they don't base their votes on the issue.
Whereas a lot of the anti control voters do base their votes on the issue.

Both Obama and Clinton have learned from Gore's 2000 loss of W.Virginia and his home state of Tennessee.
His open embracing of the Bradys and proposals for national handgun licensing and gun bans is widely considered to have cost him both states.
Winning either one would have made Florida irrelevant and Gore POTUS.

As much as I laugh about HRC's attempts to portray herself as a shooter and hunter, it'd be smart politics if she was even remotely believable.

[Glocksman]

Is it inappropriate for me to wonder why George Stephanopoulos, who worked to get Bill Clinton elected and then worked in his administration, was chosen to be one of the questioners?? They should have got one of the local ABC affilitate reporters instead.

No shit.
Whatever claims ABC had to journalistic integrity went out the window like Windu when they decided to involve him.

[Edi]

That debate was a travesty. Even Ed rendell said it was lopsided in the first 40 min (more like first hour I think). The saddest part is now it seems like everyone news stations are interviewing are saying Hillary won.

Well, of course it's going to look like that. All she had to do was sit back and go with it as they hammered Obama on every contact he's ever had and his stupid flag pin.

That's what one of the Finnish daily newspapers, Iltalehti, reported here (link in Finnish, unfortunately, but the crust is that Obama supposedly stumbled badly in a television interview). Many of the foreign newspapers use US newspapers as sources of information, so such "news" get spread far and wide.

A poor man's edit: I confused Iltalehti with Iltasanomat, two similar daily newspapers. This is Iltalehti's article about Obama-Hillary debate and manages to be more neutral and matter-of-fact style.

The Iltalehti article is quite neutral. The writer for Iltasanomat couldn't have been licking Shillary's cunt any harder if he'd tried. Looks like he'd just taken something from the American media, translated it directly and put it out as his own. The references to US media focus groups and panels was especially blatant, as if the media establishment there could be trusted at all.

[Rye]

I can't say I'm surprised; in my mind's eye, I see a table of Hillary's stooges shrouded in darkness obsessing over how they can next subvert the will of the people. Clearly, the popular vote is swayed one way, but you never know, the "nominators" whoever they are, may still be indebted to Bill, they may be relatively conservative still, they may want to sacrifice a "wild card" like Obama for the Status Quo of a proven liar like Hillary. I presume these are the same people who nominated John Kerry, after all, in a cynical attempt to show that anyone could beat Bush.

The american press is only a couple of steps away from actual party control, and the whole system is really attempting to manufacture consent for Hillary or McCain even though they're demonstrably bad as leaders and policy makers. I mean, fucking flag pins? Fuck off. Ridiculously irrelevant minor detail, but apparently, a load of americans care about it. Why do they care about it? Because they've been told to by someone else, I doubt 99% or more would've noticed it without being told to.

[Cairber]

"Do you think Reverend Wright loves this country as much as you do"

What the fuck was that? Obama should have just refused to answer any more questions until they got to the issues.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

People are Fucking Pissed at ABC[Huffington Post]

ABC Hosts Heckled After Debate: "The Crowd Is Turning On Me"

The Huffington Post | April 16, 2008 10:17 PM

Reflecting what seemed to be the main consensus of the night - that ABC botched this debate, big time - Charlie Gibson tells the crowd there will be one more, superfluous commercial break of the night and is subsequently jeered.

"OH..." he declares, hands raised in defense. "The crowd is turning on me, the crowd is turning on me."

Off camera, observers let out their frustrations. Watch it:

Visitors to ABC's site weren't much kinder. Here's a sampling on page 1:

...This is AWFUL. Thank goodness for Jon Stewart and Comedy Central. He does a better job of interviewing and asking relevant questions of his guests in 5 minutes than these 2 yahoos have in more than an hour. ABC should be ashamed. George should be ashamed. Charlie should be ashamed. This isn't a debate. This is a hit job.

...Asinine questions - abysmal debate. Fire these silly moderators NOW. They insult the intelligence of the American people.

...I haven't watched ABC "news" in a few years. I see I haven't been missing much! MORE THAN half the debate turned over to Bittergate, Rev Wright, the Weathermen, Tuzla, FLAG LAPEL PINS? Most of the televised debates I've seen this campaign season have been lame, but this one takes the prize. Either you guys are morons or you think that we are. Either way, I'm glad to have seen the last of you. Really, really bad.No winners in this debate, but a definite loser: ABC "NEWS"

...This is the WORST debate I have ever watched. Never in my life have I been more disenchanted with the news media as a whole, especially a news organization such as ABC that I believed to have some sense of purpose to bring substantive information and perspective to the American people. Americans are tired of the snipping between the candidates and the lack of discussion about what each candidate will do to help the country. ABC News should be ashamed for presenting such a failure of a debate.

...Are you kidding me? "We don't have much time left. Let's have a MINUTE to talk about gas?" Charlie and George, you need a crash course on the distinction between "issues" and an "agendas." Hint: The candidates have the former; you have the latter.

...ABC News . . you should be ashamed of this debate. Where did you get these questions?? Where are the ISSUES. We have heard enough about Rev Wright and what Hillary did or didn't do in Bosnia. Let's hear about issues that matter such as the cost of Health Care, the war in Iraq, the Energy Crisi, the Crisis in Our Schools, and THE ECONOMY, STUPID!!

...Geoirge and Charlie= narcissistic elite "journalists" trying to score a rating point, but asking questions that would yield a "F" in middle school journalism. This debate may be used for years in journalism classes, on how to not run a debate. Disney-who owns ABC- get better cartoon characters to run a debate. Elmer Fudd would do much better.

...Has ABC News noticed that your so called "debate" has been universally panned? Charles Gibson is a pandering person more fit for the National Enquirer than a responsible news program. Stephanopoulis is barely better. I am so disappointed but not surprised.

[Big Phil]

I believe it was Rachel Maddow on Olberman a couple of days ago, who said that over the last 30 years American voters have stopped voting on economic issues because they've been disappointed time after time after time, regardless of party, and as a result you're seeing them vote on values issues, such as abortion, gun control, immigration, etc.

[Chris OFarrell]

Well I've read through the transcript and seen a few clips of the debate...

One sided BS doesn't even begin to describe it. You know, I can't help but wonder if the Media is so fucking desperate to keep this 'race' between the two going, that they are actively trying to DIRECTLY help the Clinton campaign in some ways given how far behind she is...seriously!

It was just PATHETIC! If this was an SDN thread, it would have been tossed into the sewer after 10 minutes!

[Darth Wong]

Obama needs to add an extra plank to his campaign platform: a special "bullshit surtax" on news networks. It's not as if they could be any more against him anyway, and some might applaud.

[Patrick Degan]

Well I've read through the transcript and seen a few clips of the debate...

One sided BS doesn't even begin to describe it. You know, I can't help but wonder if the Media is so fucking desperate to keep this 'race' between the two going, that they are actively trying to DIRECTLY help the Clinton campaign in some ways given how far behind she is...seriously!

It was just PATHETIC! If this was an SDN thread, it would have been tossed into the sewer after 10 minutes!

Well, if one was of a conspiratorial bent, one could say the news media are hoping to nobble the nomination in Hillary's favour since she's be the weaker candidate to go up against McCain past Labour Day.

[Invictus ChiKen]

I think this smear campaign is having the opposite effect. My hard core Republican Bush is the greatest thing ever, Democrats just want to give our money to brown people Father, has spoken up in his defense.

I'm seeing many people like that around here.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

I think this smear campaign is having the opposite effect. My hard core Republican Bush is the greatest thing ever, Democrats just want to give our money to brown people Father, has spoken up in his defense.

I'm seeing many people like that around here.

See the ass end of 'I was almost killed' thread for my workplace politics. Really left-leaning here in Baton Rouge these days.

More dispatch from the Front, this time from our favorite Commies at DKos:

The Collapse Of The National Press

hu Apr 17, 2008 at 06:34:35 AM PDT

After the first forty minutes of last night's Democratic debate, it was clear we were watching something historic. Not historic in a good way, mind you, but historic in the sense of being something so deeply embarrassing to the nation that it will be pointed to, in future books and documentary works, as a prime example of the collapse of the American media into utter and complete substanceless, into self-celebrated vapidity, and into a now-complete inability or unwillingness to cover the most important affairs of the nation to any but the most shallow of depths.

Congratulations are clearly in order. ABC had two hours of access to two of the three remaining candidates vying to lead the most powerful nation in the world, and spent the decided majority of that time mining what the press considers the true issues facing the republic. Bittergate; Rev. Wright; Bosnia; American flag lapel pins. That's what's important to the future of the country.

What a contrast. Only a few weeks ago, we were presented with what was considered by many to be a historic speech by a presidential candidate on race in America -- historic for its substance, tone, delivery, and stark candor. Last night, we had an opposing, equally historic example -- and I sincerely mean that, I consider it to be every bit as significant as that word implies -- of the collapse of the political press into self-willed incompetence. You might as well pull any half-intelligent person off the street, and they would unquestionably have more difficult and significant questions for the two candidates. It was not merely a momentarily bad performance, by ABC, it was a debate explicitly designed to be what it was, which is far more telling.


It is certainly true that a case could be made that the moderators explicitly set out to frame even the supposedly "substantive" questions according to GOP designs. The implicit presumption of success in Iraq when, nearly an hour into the debate, the moderators finally deigned to mention the defining current event of this campaign. Gibson, as moderator, lied outright about the supposed effects of capital gains tax cuts, and dogged the candidates over it to a greater extent than any other economic issue: does he really believe that of all the economic challenges facing this nation, the most pressing of them is supplication towards a decade-long Republican bugaboo? Gun control? Affirmative action? These are the issues that are most compellingly on the minds of Democratic primary voters, in 2008? Or were the questions taken from a 1992 time capsule, insightful probes gathering dust for a decade and a half until they could find network moderators desperate enough to dig them up again?

But even slanted questions could be forgiven, of the press; what was more inexplicable was the intentional wallowing in substanceless, meaningless "gaffe" politics. It says something truly impressive about the press that a few statements by a presidential candidate's preacher bear far more weight to the future of our nation than the challenges of terrorism or war. It is truly a celebration of our own national collapse into idiocracy that we can furrow our brows and question the patriotism of a candidate, deeply probe their patriotism based on whether or not they regularly don a made-in-China American flag pin, but a substantive discussion of energy policy, or healthcare, or the deficit, or the housing crisis, or global climate change, or the government approval of torture, or trade issues, or the plight of one-industry small American towns, or the fight over domestic espionage and FISA, or the makeup of the Supreme Court -- those were of no significance, in comparison.

If a media organization set out to intentionally demonstrate themselves to be self absorbed and ignorant, they could not have accomplished it better. It was not just a tabloid debate, but the tittering of political kindergardeners making and lobbing mud pies. It was politics as game show. The moderators demonstrated that to them and their supposed "news" organization, the presidency of the United States of America is about the trivialities of_politics_, which were obsessed over ravenously, not about the challenges of American governance, which were fully ignored.


Certainly, as mere citizens we could ask little of the network that unapologetically brought us The Path to 9/11, a fabricated conservative pseudo-documentary laying the blame for terrorism at the feet of everyone loathed by the far right. But it is not simply ABC that bears the blame: surely, one could expect similar drivel from any of the other networks or cable channels who have so successfully and self-importantly dimmed the national discourse, these past ten years. For his part, the chairman of the written intellectual wisp, the New York Times' David Brooks, marveled at the "excellent" questions:

We may not like it, but issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall. Remember how George H.W. Bush toured flag factories to expose Michael Dukakis. It’s legitimate to see how the candidates will respond to these sorts of symbolic issues.

Indeed, how dare his peon readers whine about these things: this is how the political game is expected to be played by the grand masters of our discourse. Symbolic tours of flag factories! Checkmate! That is the elite idea of "issues" in our national debate. Piss on the war, and screw the economy -- somebody find a goddamn flag factory to tour! That is how our most elite media figures like to see political opponents "exposed" as... well, what exactly? What does touring a flag factory prove, other than the media in this country is so astonishingly gullible, tin-headed and shallow that you can actually tour a damn flag factory and get praised for it by our idiot press as being a bold, disarming move against your opponent?

Truly, we have become a nation led by the most lazy and ignorant. It seems impossible to mock or satirize just how shallowly the media considers the actual world ramifications of each election, how glancingly they explore the actual truth behind political assertion or rhetoric, or how gleefully they molest our discourse while praising themselves for those selfsame acts. And that, in turn, is precisely how we elected our current Idiot Boy King, a man who has the eloquent demeanor of a month-old Christmas tree and the nuance of a Saturday morning cartoon.

It seems impossible, but we may yet have an election season in which we can be in a slogging, five-year-long war, and mention the fact only in glancing asides. We may yet have a series of Republican-Democratic debates in which the most pressing issues of the economy are entirely ignored, so that we can more adequately explore the "patriotism" of the candidates as expressed by their clothing. We may have yet another campaign season carefully orchestrated to leave all but the most glancing and hollow of themes untouched, while our press achieves multiple orgasms at every botched line, every refused cup of coffee, every peddled character assassination or character assassination-by-proxy peddled by the sleaziest of paid dregs. A campaign, in other words, perfectly suited to the bereft, rudderless, and substanceless self-pronounced guardians of our democracy.


Perhaps, if nothing else, it is time to take back the debate process and insist once again on moderators chosen for competence, expertise and neutrality, rather than network or cable network fame. The elites of our press have managed to botch the task time and time again; perhaps it should be left to someone with an actual interest in doing the job.

* ::

[consequences]

Clearly we aren't giving the Evil Liberal Media enough credit. By so obviously attacking him in such a ridiculously overdone matter, they engender the feeling that he is the underdog to make people root for him more, and that any criticism against him is the result of a conspiracy that wants to keep him down and so shouldn't be taken seriously.