I didn’t have the “pleasure” of watching the debate tonight, I had something else which I felt deserved my attention more. In retrospect, now that I have read some of the questions which were asked by the American public, I wonder if there was anything less important than watching this debate. Let’s be honest, in all walks of life there are intelligent people and those who just take up space (no doubt living off of their entitlements). Both Democrats and Republicans have their fair share of constituents who are as sharp as a marble. My problem with tonights debate… actually with most debates so far this year, is the stupidity of the questions asked.
If this was a live debate in which callers were selected at random and asked questions without the benefit of a pre-screening, I would say “fine, what can you do”. The fact that people were asked to submit their questions via You Tube, and some of these questions were actually asked is an insult to our country. No doubt anyone watching these “debates” from other countries were laughing hysterically over what the American people truly care about. Unfortunately for the Democrats, and our country as a whole, our politicians were naive enough to dignify these questions with an answer.
To Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois: “Are you black enough”?
How does Mr. Obama reply? Does he invoke Martin Luther King and state that he wishes to live in a country which judges people by the content of their heart not the color of their skin? No of course not.. that wouldn’t gain him any points with the African American community who wants nothing more than a Black president... regardless of his credentials. Mr. Obama decided to perpetuate a stereotype by replying “You know, when I’m catching a cab in Manhattan… in the past, I think I’ve given my credentials,”
Well there you go America, Barack Obama is acceptable as President of the United States because he tried to catch a cab in Manhattan.
Hillary Clinton was put in a position where she felt it necessary to answer the absurd question “Are you feminine enough?” Hillary, as opposed to invoking the women’s liberation movement which proudly exclaimed that women and men are equal... and still do to this day, decided to dignify the question by stating “I couldn’t run as anything other than a woman.”
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Sisyphus
"Whether or not Obama is black enough, or Hillary is feminine enough only matters to the simple folk who base their vote on race, or sex."
Yes but there are a lot of "simple folk" whose votes count just the same as complex folk. All voters are not erudite political coumnists, such as yourself. ;)
2 - Sisyphus
"columnists," too.
3 - moonraven
Why not decide on the basis of the haircut?
It has been done before, and therefore there is precedent.
4 - Eric
It's great that you have such an informed opinion about something that you didn't even watch.
Kudos to your insightful journalism!
5 - King
Splendid analysis. No one seems to have the guts to write about the obvious. We have far too many stupid people who are allowed to vote. The debates prove my point. The candidates blather on about "change" and "empowerment" but realize that if they can just fool the cesspool of illiterates, they can rule the world.
6 - Z.Z. Bachman
"Interestingly enough, not one question on the immigration issue was brought up as far as I can tell"...
Yes. That entire line of inquiry was blatantly missing.
"The candidates blather on about "change" and "empowerment" but realize that if they can just fool the cesspool of illiterates, they can rule the world."
Bravo king !! Truer words were never spoken !!
____________________________________
ZZ Bachman / ZardozZ News & Satire Portal
7 - JT
An idiot with an assault rifle is invited to address Presidential hopefuls? Goodbye America.
8 - zingzing
having an assault rifle makes you american?
no it doesn't. there are plenty of russians, israelis and iraqis that have assault rifles, right? shit, if you can name a nation where not one citizen has an assault rifle, i'll eat my underwear.
that said, everyone carrying around an assault rifle is probably doing something their mother would call "idiotic."
meh.
9 - Dan
Those identity politic questions the "random" panel asked, are what matters to them. Those are the people democrats pander to.
As pathetic as it sounds, thats it.
Hillary and Obama have clear and obvious appeal.
Edwards has to work the class warfare angle.
The real question for any sane Democrats is; is Obama too black? Is Hillary too womanish?
Republicans take it on themselves to try to make as many Americans of any identity rich, fat, and sassy as they can. Democrats are dependent on envy.
10 - Baritone
For the most part, I'd say that the article and all but a few of the above comments are a load of crap.
I do think that before you have the temerity to write an article critical of something, you should at least have first hand knowledge of it.
Dave: Having an assault rifle makes you an American? That's great. That's just fuckin' great. What infantile bullshit!
Perhaps Moon's charge that this is a right wing men's club is not too far off base.
None of the so called "debates" - the Reps or Dems - have had any heavy hitting yet. It's all pretty much soft balls all around. We're well more than a year away from the real deal. Nobody wants to come down too hard as yet. It's too early to start burning bridges. Last night's debate was reasonably entertaining. Things will start to be serious as the primaries begin.
Too many "stupid" people allowed to vote? Whataya say, let's cut the idiot bastards off. Make them pass a test. Charge a poll tax. Limit the vote to only male, landed gentry. That's the America I've grown to love.
Democrats will almost certainly win in 2008 unless Bush declares marshal law and stops the election. There was a time when I believed that no one could fuck up the presidency more than Nixon. I was wrong. The Bush White House has been far more paranoid, ruthless, lawless and stupid than Nixon and his drooling thugs ever dreamed of being. Bush and his handlers have made the US a laughing stock pretty much everywhere in the world. The Dems could hardly do any worse.
Baritone
11 - Lee Richards
Vague answers to vapid questions, sound-bite platform positions and slinging mud in all directions ultimately tells us nothing meaningful in American presidential-election politics.
Neither do concocted artificial labels: conservative, liberal, GOP, Democrats, this-wing, that-wing. This phony "naming" of oneself and others is all a big game politicians play;if you get to name it, you can control it.
Plainly and simply, every presidential candidate is running for one reason--to get the keys to the treasury, for himself or herself, their friends and supporters. That's it! It's not new and it's not subtle, but true-believers refuse to see it for what it most clearly is.
The rest is smoke and mirrors, cake and circuses. If you believe otherwise, you have been seduced and deluded, fooled into thinking that they share your beliefs and concerns. They do not. They want control of the money--period.
Call yourself a true conservative, a moderate, a lifelong Democrat, argue your principles forever and a day, believe sincerely that the right person with the right values(that you share)will really make a difference for you and your cherished fundamental ideals and national goals--and you are doomed to disappointment. (They may throw a few bones your way, the better to keep you in line. After all, it pays dividends for them.)
Who should we vote for? The individual you THINK(you can't really know) might, after getting the keys to the vault, spend some of the money on the greatest good for the greatest number.
12 - moonraven
Moonraven's charges are NEVER off-base.
As a bird, living in the trees (very much like the Count in the Italo Calvino tale), I have what is called CRITICAL DISTANCE.
That is to say, I am not whirling in the vortex of the toilet bowl....
13 - Baritone
Ah, but you do appear a bit flushed.
14 - moonraven
And, regarding the debate, it's clear that only Mike Gravel has the wisdom, the experience and the courage to "tell it like it is".
He said that there will br no change if any of those candidates is elected.
And he was absolutely bang on.
They are the Tweedledees to the republicans' Tweedledum(b)s.
15 - Baritone
Moon,
Can't go along with you on Gravel. He's got "gravel" in his head. He is a borderline psycho. I don't want his finger on the button.
You're just impressed because he's the only one not playing nice. I agreed with him, though, on one point. That being his charge that all who died in Vietnam did so in vain. They most certainly did, just as people continue to die in vain in Iraq and Afghanistan. People die in vain in most wars and so called wars.
Baritone
16 - moonraven
Right--Baritone, I hate to say it, but YOU are the one with gravel in your head.
That old guy thinks rings around you American style toilet freaks!
17 - moonraven
Discuss this story Printer Friendly Version E-Mail This Article
Published on Thursday, July 26, 2007 by USA Today
Don’t Lock Me Out: My Competitor’s Comments Reveal Character Traits Voters Should Know.
by Mike Gravel
Earlier this month, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., made a statement that cleared up the mystery about who has been attempting to limit my participation in Democratic debates and forums. No other Democrat has had his participation limited.
When CNN, along with The (Manchester) Union Leader newspaper and WMUR-TV, did not invite me to their prospective debates scheduled to begin in New Hampshire on June 6, my staff asked why I was being excluded and were told that the senator did not meet some arbitrary “criteria.”
The public’s overwhelming reaction to CNN’s unfairness forced the debate sponsors to reverse their earlier decisions.
An even more surprising mystery occurred next when MoveOn.org, the progressive anti-war organization, excluded me from its online Town Meeting. Its reasoning was that I did not receive any votes from its membership.
The final mystery occurred when the Los Angeles-based Human Rights Campaign chose not to invite me to its August candidate forum. The essence of HRC is justice and civil rights, and my positions on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights are the most progressive of any presidential candidate. When supporters learned of my exclusion, there was such an outcry that the HRC, too, was forced to reverse itself.
The comment by Sen. Clinton, in an exchange with former senator John Edwards at the NAACP forum in Detroit on July 12, explains why these things are happening:
Edwards:“We should try to have a more serious, and a smaller, group.”
Clinton:“There was an attempt by our campaigns to do that, it got, somehow, detoured. We’ve gotta get back to it. Our guys should talk.”
When questioned about her comment the next day, Sen. Clinton, in an apparent attempt to shift blame to Sen. Edwards, said:
“I think he (Edwards) has some ideas about what he’d like to do.”
By implying that it was Sen. Edwards who was conspiring to limit my participation in public debates, Sen. Clinton was trying to deflect attention from her previous blunder. This reveals an interesting character trait in Sen. Clinton that Americans have come to expect from her.
Former senator Mike Gravel, D-Alaska, is a candidate for president.
18 - moonraven
Published on Thursday, July 26, 2007 by Huffington Post
My Challenge to the Presidential Candidates
by Michael Moore
The American government isn’t afraid to hand out free health care. Senior citizens get it. Veterans get it. As SiCKO shows you, even the detainees at Guantanamo Bay get it.
So, too, do our federal elected officials. It doesn’t matter if they are Republicans or Democrats, young or old, healthy or sick " they are entitled to free, government-provided health insurance. They don’t have to worry about being able to pay for medical help " even if many of their constituents do.
When Senator Sherrod Brown was running for a seat in the House of Representatives over 10 years ago, he saw something wrong with this. He pledged not to accept his free government health care until everyone in the United States had the same luxury. (He’s still waiting.)
Brown reasoned that politicians should have the same privileges as those they represent. I know a lot of the Democrats running for President understand this principle. Monday night during their YouTube debate, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Mike Gravel, Dennis Kucinich, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson all pledged to work for the minimum wage should they be elected president " to show that they’re in touch with the plight of everyday Americans, and to make sure they are personally invested in making sure the minimum wage in this country is a livable one. Good for them.
Now, candidates, how about giving up your health care too? If elected president, you and your family will be entitled to free government health care, courtesy of the fine doctors at the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. But nearly 50 million of your constituents will go without any medical care at all " and 18,000 of them will die during your first year in office simply because they lack health insurance. As the head of the government, how can you take advantage of its health care services, but deny it to so many citizens?
I am calling on each presidential candidate to pledge to refuse their free government health care until every person in this country also has it. I want every candidate who said they’d work for the minimum wage as president to work uninsured, too, until health care is universal. And I want the other candidates to join them. (Yes, I’m looking at you, too, Republicans. I know you can afford to do it.)
During Monday night’s interactive debate, I submitted this exact challenge on YouTube, just like everyone else. CNN didn’t choose it " maybe Dr. Gupta was making the selections? Anyway, I am issuing it here. All candidates should pledge to take whatever health care is available to the least fortunate American. Right now, that’s nothing. Hopefully as president, they’ll have to make it something.
Michael Moore’s newest film, SiCKO, is now in theaters nationwide.
www.michaelmoore.com
© 2007 Huffington Post
19 - Heloise
My title said it all: YouTube, You Win. That's all she wrote. YouTube won the debates. The pundits are saying that, like Heloise, Hillary is winning the debates, verbally, but maybe not politcally. Barack seems to be winning politically. Go figure.
Yes, YouTube won the debates. Are the questions stupid? We teachers are taught not to diss any questions, even when the questioner is stalling for time.
Heloise
20 - bliffle
The TV pundits won the debates. Their persistent avoidance of discussing the issues, but rather discussing the horse race, avoided risking losing viewers through alienation. Thus, they retained their advertising base and their salaries.
Until We all stop watching TV pundits who talk incessantly about what percent of men support Hillary vs. what percent of actors support Thompson, while totally avoiding the merits of their stands on issues, we will continue to be defrauded both of our TV money and of serious exposition of the issues of the day.
21 - Dave Nalle
What bugs me about the YouTube debates, on reflection, is that they aren't that special. The novelty was undermined by the fact that the same kind of people picked the video questions to use who would have made up the questions in a regular debate. So they just picked the same old questions with the trivial novelty of someone different speaking the words.
Dave
22 - STM
Nothing worse than a bunch of middle-aged twats trying to be trendy by debating politics on a medium like YouTube. It's vomit-inducing. Is nothing sacred, I ask?
That's the problem with having young, inexperienced, and overpaid advisers (or teenage children).
23 - STM
Dave: "And btw, just having an assault rifle doesn't make you an idiot. It makes you an American."
Yep. An American with an assault rifle.
24 - Clavos
It's juvenile and trivial to have a snowman asking a question of a presidential candidate.
Only in America...
25 - STM
Was it Frosty?