I sat at my press seat at the Philadelphia Kimmel Center checking my watch. It was either running fast or I had been swept into a space time-continuum that was about to swallow up any semblance of a learning experience.
Unfortunately, it was the latter.
It took fifty-two minutes before ABC anchor and debate moderator, Charlie Gibson, decided to ask an actual policy question. The fifty-one minutes prior were filled with questions concerning verbal gaffes, personal associations and whether each candidate would select each candidate as their Vice President (which anyone with half a moderator's mind would know how the candidates would answer).
The first policy question of policy concerned Iraq and that tit-for-tat lasted exactly eleven minutes.
51 to 11.
51 minutes involving Reverend Wright, William Ayers, flag pins and Bosnia fables.
11 minutes on how to deal with what had cost hundred of thousands of deaths, hundreds of billions in dollars and devastation of out military readiness
51 to 11
Major issue asymmetry or the odds against the country making an intelligent decision for President?
51 to 11
Important presidential debate? More like talk radio minutia. Somewhere at FoxNews, my buddy Sean Hannity had to be popping champagne. He and the rest of Lords of Loud had shaped the Democratic debate. No fault of Hannity. He's just doing his job. Too bad Gibson and Stephanopolis didn't do theirs.
51 to 11
An insult to intelligence, the American voter and time.
Steve Young is author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (www.greatfailure.com) that now needs an extra chapter to cover last night.
www.greatfailure.com
A talk show host, author, columnist,award-winning television writer and filmmaker, his inspiring book, "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" (Tallfellow Press) has been published internationally and has become required reading in the Wharton School of Business Masters Program. His "All The News That's Fit To Spoof " column appears every Sunday on the L.A. Daily News Oped Page.
Steve has appeared all over national TV and radio with his unique brand of satirical punditry and social observations appearing in national periodicals from the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times, to his own weekly Internet column "The Lords Of Loud," at AlbionMonitor.net and The Huffington Post.
I became so angry with the irrelevant questions that Charles G. and George S. were asking that I turned off the "debate." I was disgusted when George jumped on Obama's "disown" word choice. These moderators focused on the same old sludge rather than on the monumental problems we face. It will take a concerted and united boycott of this type of "news" coverage to get through to the cable and regular networks.
by
Bonnie Niebruegge (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 15 comments)
on Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 7:32:08 AM
I didn't have to bother watching it, besides the Dodgers were on, because by then, Keith Olbermann had told us what happened, and if he were allowed to swear on air, I'm sure he would have said, what bull crap!
We deserve so much better.
by
Sandy Sand (129 articles, 0 quicklinks, 145 diaries, 1127 comments)
on Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 9:29:53 AM
No, I didn't. The time wasted with nonsense including the ridiculous video taped question of a woman asking why Obama didn't wear an American flag pin (this is what concerns most Americans?!) precluded discussion of the meaty important issues facing this nation. The moderaters were contentious. Hillary's comments on the manufactured non-issue Bittergate showed hypocrisy compared to her weak defense of her Bosnian gunfire fable. I respected Obama's composure and many attempts to talk about the real issues. I thought it strange that Charlie cut off Hillary's jabs at Cheney. The whole thing had the feel of two children being questioned in the principal's office. It was a waste of my time.
by
Hope Hofmann (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 7 comments)
on Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 9:35:42 AM
ABC's Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos turned what should have been a serious political debate into a caricature of the worst in media-driven politics. I completely lost all respect for both of them. Sen. Joseph McCarthy could not have done a more complete hatchet job on Sen. Obama in trying to tie the alleged sins of some of his acquaintances to him.
I was also appalled at their attempts to interject themselves into the campaign by their repeated tries to get both candidates to take a zero-tolerance no-tax increase pledge. This is one of the oldest and cheapest ploys, and is especially inappropriate coming during an unnecessary, unjust war that is being financed by federal deficits. Gibson and Stephanopoulos should show the same determination to force John McCain to take a "no more preemptive wars" pledge, or to force the leaders of Israel to take a "no more settlements" pledge.
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Laurence A. Toenjes (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 18 comments)
on Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 9:49:01 AM
Shameful, worthless meda. ABC should not be forgotten as future debates are planned beteen the DNC and GOP candidates.
But let us not forget that Hillary could have spoken up and shut this down. Obama tried to, repeatedly anwering briefly and then trying to take the discussion to a higher, policy level.
Afterwards, the Hillary people in the spin room bragged how well Hillary did. At what? sitting quietly while ABC did a hit job on Obama?
Simply the idea of putting a former Clinton staffer in the position of asking questions of Obama was totally unethical and inappropriate. Perhaps someone argued that Stephanopolous would operate with integrity. I'll leve it to you to decide if he did or not.
rob
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Rob Kall (722 articles, 3752 quicklinks, 305 diaries, 1492 comments)
on Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 11:00:54 AM
It's past the time to boycott the National News on ABC, etc,
Progressives should just boycott the national news broadcasts on ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN. It's pretty well established that we aren't getting any REAL news, only corporate-approved news anyway from this group. If we're not watching this crap, we're also not seeing the "ask your doctor", big pharma ads. I can't help but believe that losing 10 million or so nightly viewers on those 4 TV channels would cause a flap somewhere in their financial world.
by
Rufus2 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 12 comments)
on Thursday, April 17, 2008 at 3:15:38 PM
