Obama supporters point to Clinton and vice versa, but who really lost the debate?
While one of the candidates may have done better than the other, the real loser was the media. Instead of the questions being about policy the moderators mostly focused on politics. Obama’s “bitter” remark about how some Senator Pennsylvanians “cling to guns or religion” and the make-believe bullets that rained down around Senator Clinton when she visited Bosnia as the First Lady in the 90’s.
Throughout the 2008 election the media has continually made a mockery of itself. The only relevant outlets seem to be ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer’ – the others rarely focus on the issues, instead they treat the election like a horse race. For a political science project I monitored several different media outlets from January to mid-march and the trends were the same in every medium except those making fun of the news medium (‘The Daily Show’) and the (partially) publicly funded ‘NewsHour’. Time Magazine, the New York Times and any cable news network focus a lot more heavily on the campaign strategies of the candidates than what the politicians stances are.
As a journalist-in-training this is a tragedy and think the media should be partially blamed for the some of the ignorance among the ignorant masses. The Huffington Post reported the Vice President of ABC News said the reason the moderator, Charlie Gibson, was booed was because they were going to commercial and not because of the questions he asked. Logically, the audience would not have booed the final commercial coming if their thirst for some sort of knowledge has been quenched. Maybe less questions about bullets and more about economics? Less about “bitterness” and more about pork barrel spending?
Looking back at how much more substance pre-broadcast news actually had, maybe ABC needs to take a look back and take some advice from their slogan. It’s time for them to “Start Fresh.”
-Ted Hamilton
April 17, 2008 at 9:12 pm |
Interesting attack on the media.
I remember when Ron Paul was asked questions during the debates. His answers were incredibly focused on policy and the relationship to american history; i.e. the Constitution. Not only were his responses spurned by his opponents as though Paul himself was a nuisance, but the moderators continually ignored him.
In fact, the only time they followed up on a Paul response was to try and make him out to be a madman.
“Wait a minute, are you saying you want to eliminate public education?” That follow-up question translates to this: “Hey everyone, this guy’s a maniac!”
Imagine that. A politician who wants to discuss policy, heritage and duty to the founding fathers. Nothing is more instrumental than our history–and careful observation to the mistakes we’ve made over and over. This current war is an example of simple tautology when considering the phrase “history is doomed to repeat itself.”
The elimination of Paul, an actual leader, to these two bickering fools who spend more time examining their bowling scores and triumphs in minority rights endeavors sickens me. We’ll never get a decent president.
April 19, 2008 at 5:46 am |
Hey Ted:
The first 50 minutes of the debate involved questions extremely legitimate to electing someone as president.
When you examine Barak Obama’s social circle it’s full of shady, anti-American creeps. If he’s comfortable with these people, then the question becomes what sort of people would he be comfortable taking advice from while in office.
Remember, Rev. Wright is like a father to Obama. And, despite what many with political motivations to see Obama elected would tell you, the exerts from sermons did not take this man out of context. That might have been a viable argument if there simply wasn’t such a huge number of clips.
And, this Bill Ayers fellow, a member of the Weather Underground who bombed the Pentagon and avoided prison on a technicality. On Sept. 11, 2001 he was quoted in the New York Times as not regretting his part in the bombings. He also said he didn’t feel like he’d done enough.
And, what about Obama’s connections to Tony Rezko, an extremely dirty member of Chicago’s political community.
The real question isn’t why these questions were asked — it’s why they haven’t been asked all along!
A man comfortable with this social circle lacks the judgment necessary for _any_ elected office, including county dog catcher.