The Debate So Far (Imagine Me Making A Face Revealing That I Am Both Astonished And Disgusted)
No sense in reading this. I just need something to do while I watch...
1.
Well, a half an hour so far of Stephanopolous & co. doing nothing but carrying water for HRC and McCain, puling and whining and badgering about bittergate and the Reverend Wright. Jebus. Not a single question about policy yet, absolutely everything has been a criticism aimed at Obama.
Oh, and now one dinky little poke at Clinton, and it's time to move on.
Unbelievably unfair and one-sided. I really cannot believe this.
Cripes! And now Obama takes the high road again! Jebus, man, quit defending her! She's possessed by the Devil! She's a witch! Let her have it! Quit being so dang fair-minded! What the heck is wrong with you?!?!
O.k., now I'm freaked out. I suddenly realized that we've got a candidate who is dangerously fair-minded. I'm always screaming about this stuff, but I thought the days of such candidates were long gone...
2.
The flag.
Oh, gods.
"Senator Obama, no matter what you say or what you do or how you live your life, you can't be a real American unless you are a flag fetishist. So my question to you is: why do you hate America so much?"
Awesome answer. But, as usual, rather too lengthy and cerebral.
I'm starting to worry that Obama is just too serious and thoughtful to ever get elected.
3.
More gotchas aimed at Obama. Now he's apparently a member of the Weather Underground. His answer here wasn't that good.
This is appalling, and it's going very, very badly. It's HRC and the moderators against Obama in a tag-team match.
What a nauseating spectacle.
4.
HRC finally says something sensible: the Republicans should apologize for the Bush administration and just say that it's the Democrat's turn. I actually think there's a helluva lot of truth in that, and I've been thinking similar things of late. Really. If they had an ounce of shame, they'd just give the Dems a bye on this one.
5.
Gibson now says that HRC has been "short-changed"...because they've been attacking Obama the whole time.
What an appalling spectacle. This has been just sickening so far. Look, I'm all for putting these folks through their paces, throwing tough questions at them and so forth, but this has been a one-sided series of low blows against Obama. I'd been spending the last couple of days critically mulling over my pro-Obama position, but this thing has been so damn unfair I find myself being more Obama than when the thing started.
Really--this is the best we can do? This is how we want to
Part II
Well, if you thought that the second half might be unfair attacks on HRC to balance out the first half...you're disappointed.
6.
Will you pull out of Iraq no matter what military advice you get?
Damn. Both say 'yes.' Not smart, not right.
Though: Obama makes an excellent point, but needs to make the obvious other half of the point:
Obama points out that the Commander in Chief sets the mission, the military carries it out. What he needs to point out is that Bush is completely confused about what it is to be the C-in-C: he acts as if he takes commands from the military, and then he can, as C-in-C, exert complete command over the legislature and everybody else. The arrow goes from legislature to C-in-C to military, not the other way. (Which is not to say, though, that advice from military experts should be ignored.)
7.
Israel.
OMFG. Now attacking Israel is supposed to be tantamount to attacking the U.S.???
Look, I grew up as--or so I thought--the biggest Israel fan of all time. But then I, well, grew up. Israel is a very complicated case. We should be allies with all peaceful liberal democracies. But Israel isn't exactly helping us out much.
8.
Now Obama's just doing down in flames. This capital gains tax question just took things from very bad to terrible.
They're giving Clinton no tough questions, they're letting her get away with just about everything, and Clinton and the moderators are all focusing all their fire on Obama. He was managing to limp along until the capital gains question. This is the first question where HRC really does seem to have a much better command of the policy facts. Already besieged on all sides, Obama started floundering, and lashed out with the bit about what HRC said once off-camera.
Man, this has been like an ambush. For awhile there it looked like our man was going to be able to handle it, but it looks pretty bleak at this point.
Gotta stop. This is deplorable. JQ keeps turning to me and asking whether this is really as appalling as it seems, or whether she's just seeing things through her Obama-colored lenses... Hard to say... It's not like I don't have a dog in the fight...but it seems shockingly unfair and one-sided to me.
I gotta stop this. I'm starting to get more than a little angry.
[Note: it's not just me. Everybody seems to be talking about what an appalling job Stephanopolous and Gibson have done. Jeez, what a travesty.
Jesus---Gibson continues to interrupt Obama at every turn. Jesus. It's like we need meta-moderators to moderate the moderators.]
[Christ! Now Gibson is interrupting Clinton to take shots at Obama! WTF is going on here?]
[Does working the refs really pay off this easily? A little puling and whining by HRC because she had to go first slightly more than 50% of the time, and to make up for it Stephanopolous and Gibson start attacking Obama at every turn???]
[Oh...and now it turns out that one of the questions got in because some right-wing radio host insisted that Stephanopolous ask it. WTF?]
No sense in reading this. I just need something to do while I watch...
1.
Well, a half an hour so far of Stephanopolous & co. doing nothing but carrying water for HRC and McCain, puling and whining and badgering about bittergate and the Reverend Wright. Jebus. Not a single question about policy yet, absolutely everything has been a criticism aimed at Obama.
Oh, and now one dinky little poke at Clinton, and it's time to move on.
Unbelievably unfair and one-sided. I really cannot believe this.
Cripes! And now Obama takes the high road again! Jebus, man, quit defending her! She's possessed by the Devil! She's a witch! Let her have it! Quit being so dang fair-minded! What the heck is wrong with you?!?!
O.k., now I'm freaked out. I suddenly realized that we've got a candidate who is dangerously fair-minded. I'm always screaming about this stuff, but I thought the days of such candidates were long gone...
2.
The flag.
Oh, gods.
"Senator Obama, no matter what you say or what you do or how you live your life, you can't be a real American unless you are a flag fetishist. So my question to you is: why do you hate America so much?"
Awesome answer. But, as usual, rather too lengthy and cerebral.
I'm starting to worry that Obama is just too serious and thoughtful to ever get elected.
3.
More gotchas aimed at Obama. Now he's apparently a member of the Weather Underground. His answer here wasn't that good.
This is appalling, and it's going very, very badly. It's HRC and the moderators against Obama in a tag-team match.
What a nauseating spectacle.
4.
HRC finally says something sensible: the Republicans should apologize for the Bush administration and just say that it's the Democrat's turn. I actually think there's a helluva lot of truth in that, and I've been thinking similar things of late. Really. If they had an ounce of shame, they'd just give the Dems a bye on this one.
5.
Gibson now says that HRC has been "short-changed"...because they've been attacking Obama the whole time.
What an appalling spectacle. This has been just sickening so far. Look, I'm all for putting these folks through their paces, throwing tough questions at them and so forth, but this has been a one-sided series of low blows against Obama. I'd been spending the last couple of days critically mulling over my pro-Obama position, but this thing has been so damn unfair I find myself being more Obama than when the thing started.
Really--this is the best we can do? This is how we want to
Part II
Well, if you thought that the second half might be unfair attacks on HRC to balance out the first half...you're disappointed.
6.
Will you pull out of Iraq no matter what military advice you get?
Damn. Both say 'yes.' Not smart, not right.
Though: Obama makes an excellent point, but needs to make the obvious other half of the point:
Obama points out that the Commander in Chief sets the mission, the military carries it out. What he needs to point out is that Bush is completely confused about what it is to be the C-in-C: he acts as if he takes commands from the military, and then he can, as C-in-C, exert complete command over the legislature and everybody else. The arrow goes from legislature to C-in-C to military, not the other way. (Which is not to say, though, that advice from military experts should be ignored.)
7.
Israel.
OMFG. Now attacking Israel is supposed to be tantamount to attacking the U.S.???
Look, I grew up as--or so I thought--the biggest Israel fan of all time. But then I, well, grew up. Israel is a very complicated case. We should be allies with all peaceful liberal democracies. But Israel isn't exactly helping us out much.
8.
Now Obama's just doing down in flames. This capital gains tax question just took things from very bad to terrible.
They're giving Clinton no tough questions, they're letting her get away with just about everything, and Clinton and the moderators are all focusing all their fire on Obama. He was managing to limp along until the capital gains question. This is the first question where HRC really does seem to have a much better command of the policy facts. Already besieged on all sides, Obama started floundering, and lashed out with the bit about what HRC said once off-camera.
Man, this has been like an ambush. For awhile there it looked like our man was going to be able to handle it, but it looks pretty bleak at this point.
Gotta stop. This is deplorable. JQ keeps turning to me and asking whether this is really as appalling as it seems, or whether she's just seeing things through her Obama-colored lenses... Hard to say... It's not like I don't have a dog in the fight...but it seems shockingly unfair and one-sided to me.
I gotta stop this. I'm starting to get more than a little angry.
[Note: it's not just me. Everybody seems to be talking about what an appalling job Stephanopolous and Gibson have done. Jeez, what a travesty.
Jesus---Gibson continues to interrupt Obama at every turn. Jesus. It's like we need meta-moderators to moderate the moderators.]
[Christ! Now Gibson is interrupting Clinton to take shots at Obama! WTF is going on here?]
[Does working the refs really pay off this easily? A little puling and whining by HRC because she had to go first slightly more than 50% of the time, and to make up for it Stephanopolous and Gibson start attacking Obama at every turn???]
[Oh...and now it turns out that one of the questions got in because some right-wing radio host insisted that Stephanopolous ask it. WTF?]
posted by Winston Smith at
8:32 PM
1 Comments:
It's not like I don't have a dog in the fight...
Oh, please, WS.
Not that I disagree with your rare moment of clarity about media bias here. It just took your own ox finally being gored to notice it.
On the other hand, the media do make-up calls when their obvious bias is revealed. As you're a basketball fan, I know you know what that means.
The media gave Gore and Kerry soft treatment at the beginning of their candidacies, and have done so for Barack Obama so far.
Eventually it's so obvious that they get embarrassed, and bring the hammer down the other way. True of Gore, Kerry and now Obama.
Center-right Fox News, the only news organ in the USA that the Democrats have run away from, would have swung the pendulum in favor of relative softballs, or "fairness."
Oh, the irony, the humanity.
Just like you militantly avoid me now even as I support your accurate observations [and I won't stoop to referring to you in the third person, WS], it is to laugh.
Because all tragedy is funny in its way. Necessarily so. Try to stack the deck but miss one card, and it all turns to shit.
Koo Koo Cachoo.
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