Electile dysfunction.

Did you see the "debate" on ABC last night? In case you thought there was some slim chance the issues might get at least a cursory hearing, you will have been severely disappointed. This is turning out to be the first 100% issue-free election season, stuffed with infantile claims, charges, and counter-charges that would shame an elementary school contest. An astounding 45 minutes was spent at the outset on 3 points of earth-shattering concern to every American:



  1. Do Barack Obama's recent comments mean he's an "elitist"?


  2. Do Reverend Wright, William Ayers, and Louis Farrakhan speak for Obama?


  3. Does the fact that Obama doesn't always wear a little 59-cent flag lapel pin mean that he hates America?



I'm not sure who put in a more despicable performance last night - the amazingly smug Hillary Clinton or the so-called "moderators", Charlie Gibson and George Snuffleupagus. First question - why the fuck is something as central as a presidential debate left in the hands of a corporate television network, which has no scruple about serving this up as entertainment content? For chrissake, the lead-in graphic promoted this debate as a "One-On-One" between the two candidates, like it was a boxing match. Who was their consultant on this, Don King? (This was like "The Thrilla in Manila" part two.) More than a debate, it was just a continuation of the obsessiveness that's been carrying the day elsewhere on the networks and in other media, though apparently not so much in the lives of ordinary Americans (who, bizarrely, are still concerned with a crumbling economy, an endless war, soaring energy prices, and a government that obviously doesn't care a damn about them).


These events should be hosted by some neutral institution, with questions that reflect people's actual concerns, not the demands of the 24-hour news cycle. Instead, we have Gibson and Snuffleupagus acting as the arbiters of political virtue and personal propriety, asking Obama at one point if he feels that Reverend Wright is "as patriotic" as Obama is; declaring the flag pin "controversy" as somehow relevant because it is "all over the Internet," and so on. I don't know quite what the standard should be for determining debate questions, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't include suggestions from the like of Sean Hannity, who can't even be bothered to look into the William Ayers comments before opening his festering yap (i.e., Hannity excoriated Ayers for making comments about Weather Underground bombings on 9/11 "of all days", when it hardly takes a genius to work out that his comments were printed in the New York Times on 9/11/2001 and made a long time before that date). That's ABC's research department: FoxNews.


Full disclosure: I'm not a huge fan of Obama, though out of the three choices, he is marginally better. But this method for electing leaders is ludicrous. This is why we get presidents who suck so badly.


luv u,


jp

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