Philly Debate Last Night

[toasty]

To those of you that watched this, am I the only one that thought that the moderators really botched this one? The overwhelming majority of questions were those designed to make the candidates uncomfortable and defensive.

To Obama:
Rev. Wright
Bittergate
Weather Underground (that one was apparently suggested by Sean Hannity)
Flag pins

To Clinton:
Bosnia
Her lack of candor

Here's the deal -- I understand that these are issues on voters minds and they are fair game. On the other hand, the process seemed to be weighted so heavily in favor of negative questions, there was scarcely any time to discuss policy at all. I think we were an hour into the debate before there was a question that wasn't of the "gotcha" variety.

On the news this morning, the drumbeat to some extent was that Clinton had Obama on the defensive. If Obama was defensive, I don't think it had anything to do with anything Clinton said and did, it had to do with Gibson and Steph's questions and tone. FFS, Gibson even argued with Obama at one point over whether the factual premise of his question was accurate. Seemed a bit more like grandstanding than moderating, IMO.

To some extent, as a candidate you might welcome such questions because you know they're coming and you have an opportunity to put out your best argument before a wide audience once and for all in a semi-controlled fashion. Some of the questions were just absurd, though, and when you have the moderators acting as active participants in the debate, I think it gets away from the purpose of the debate, which is for the candidates to debate with one another.

Thoughts?

[Dj Lunchtray]

Re: Philly Debate Last Night

I did not see that debate, but I agree with you. Moderators should do just that, moderate between the candidates, not get involved in the debates themselves.
And the questions asked...it's a shame that the attitude of negativity prevails over what's actually important, which is the policies.

"The overwhelming majority of questions were those designed to make the candidates uncomfortable and defensive."
-who actually comes up with these question?

[Jenks]

Re: Philly Debate Last Night

Agree with you Toasty. When you were at the game, and i texted you and said, "they're asking some tough questions" that's what i meant. Nothing really telling we didn't already know, but it seemed the moderators intent to put the candidates in a pinch the entire time.

I thought Obama handled himself really well tho in the midst of those "gotcha" questions.

I was kinda shocked to see George Stephanopolis be one of the moderators. George being one of the major contributors on Bill Clinton's campaign. I think he was actually the #2 guy in the campaign behind Carville.

[toasty]

Re: Philly Debate Last Night

I was kinda shocked to see George Stephanopolis be one of the moderators. George being one of the major contributors on Bill Clinton's campaign. I think he was actually the #2 guy in the campaign behind Carville.

I thought he actually served as press secretary during the Clinton years, too, but he evidently never formally held that title. It was an odd choice to have someone so closely tied to the Clintons moderating the debate, though. She didn't exactly get off easy, though.

Three things I've noticed as I've been reading the various roundups today:
1. About half of the commentators think Obama had a bad night
2. The other half thing the debate was a complete farce, and that ABC completely screwed the pooch
3. Polls of voters watching the debate show Obama winning

I don't think anything happened that will seriously change the course of things -- they both handled themselves pretty well under some awfully tough fire, at least to the extent that neither of them had any royal fuck ups. The one thing that might inspire some new discussion is that the Ayers/Weather Underground thing -- which has gotten very little press up until now -- might get new life as a new set of blowhards learn about it and try to spin an "Obama is a terrorist" story out of it.

Obama handled the question brilliantly, I thought -- esp. the part about Bill pardoning two WU members -- but I have a feeling that there's a part of the Clintonista set out there that hadn't heard about it until last night and is now dutifully searching the internet in preparation for a new assault. Fresh meat, ya know...

[toasty]

Re: Philly Debate Last Night

Great post on just what a farce the debate last night was and how it ultimately helped the GOP, from my favorite talk-show host and blogger, Cenk Uygur -- long but thought-provoking and spot on, IMO.

Every election cycle the Republicans play the same game of distraction. They want to distract people from what they have done, so they turn the focus on to what their opponents said, or what someone who can nominally be linked to their opponents said.

And every year, the press dutifully plays along.

The ABC debate last night might have been the most egregious example because it seemed like it was the only thing they asked about, but the whole election so far has been littered with these false controversies. All of this plays exactly into the hands of the Republicans. Don't worry about what we did to this country, look away, instead spend all your time getting angry about what someone said.

What did Rev. Wright say, what did a man from the Weather Underground say, what did Obama say about bitter people, what did Hillary say about Bosnia? And now, it's even sillier - what did they wear? First, it was Hillary wearing something that theoretically showed cleavage - and this was supposed to prove how cunning she is. And now it's whether Obama wears a flag lapel pin.

The thing that I keep wondering about is whether the actors in this play realize they are in a theater of the absurd and dutifully do their parts or if they are all naifs who are being played themselves.

Does Stephanopoulos realize that he is helping the Republican election strategy by asking an insane and inane question about whether Obama wears an American flag? Or does he have no clue as to how he is being spun? It's all in the question, George. In case you don't know, let me make you aware, the answer is irrelevant, the Republicans win when you ask the question because 1) it sets Obama up as unpatriotic and makes him look defensive when he answers that he is patriotic - it's like asking him whether he beats his wife 2) it distracts from the real issues and gets people to vote the wrong way based on superficialities rather than the real issues that effect their lives.

This Republican administration, aided and abetted the whole way by the Republicans in Congress, has led us into a disastrous war in Iraq. 4,000 Americans killed, 30,000 wounded, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed. Think about that for a second. Hundreds of thousands of civilians - women, children, brothers, sisters, aunts, grandfathers - all killed based on a tremendous, world changing mistake by the Republicans, George W. Bush and John McCain (and Hillary Clinton). And they're asking what Obama is wearing?

It's the game of don't look at what we've done, look at what he said. If we don't all rise up and rebel against it, they are going to keep playing this game forever. They asked Obama about what his neighbor said about something his neighbor had done forty years ago. Do you know all the things you're neighbor has said and done? And what would you do if you did know? Give him a sound thrashing?

Meanwhile, Rome is burning. The economy is a mess. The dollar is crashing because we have spent far too much money and borrowed even more for wars that did more harm than good. And now Charlie Gibson asks, no demands, that Clinton and Obama pledge to never, ever raise taxes. He says that revenues always rise when you lower capital gains taxes. Really? Would they rise even more if we lower the rate to 1%? How about 0%?

Does Charlie Gibson know that Republicans lower taxes irresponsibly every time they get into office and then blame the Democrats for raising them because the economy is crashing when they get into office? Does he know this shell game? Does he know his question is loaded to make it appear that the Democrats want to take your money and that everything would be fine if we just stopped taxing everyone? Does he ever ask the Republicans to take a pledge to not cut taxes if the budget isn't balanced? Think about that one for a second. You have to think about it because it has never, ever been asked of the Republicans.

But what a relief it was when they did ask the loaded policy questions because they were at least policy questions. I timed it. It took 52 minutes into the debate before the ABC "News" folks asked a single question on the issues. They were a parody of themselves. It was embarrassing to watch.

Will someone ask John McCain - yes or no, if you had to do Iraq war over again, would you do it? I don't want to hear about how McCain complained about Rumsfeld and how he would have done the war so much better. I want to know, knowing what you know now, would you have invaded Iraq? Shoot, they won't even ask him to apologize for what his pastor said or what his neighbor said, let alone ask him the most relevant question there is.

This game sickens me. All I want to know now is whether the so-called news folks are in on it or if they are fools being played like clueless puppets. I want to know whether I should be angry or sad. Imagine how embarrassed they must feel this morning if none of this had ever occurred to them and for the first time they realized they've been played for fools all along. That the Republicans call them names, accuse them of being biased and then have them do their bidding every year -- and then laugh at them behind their back and talk about how pathetic they are.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/the-what-he-said-game_b_97203.html

[toasty]

Re: Philly Debate Last Night

One last point about the debate, and then I'll shut up -- this question from last night's debate:

A gentleman named William Ayers, he was part of the Weather Underground in the 1970s. They bombed the Pentagon, the Capitol and other buildings. He's never apologized for that. And in fact, on 9/11 he was quoted in The New York Times saying, "I don't regret setting bombs; I feel we didn't do enough."

An early organizing meeting for your state senate campaign was held at his house, and your campaign has said you are friendly. Can you explain that relationship for the voters, and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/16/us/politics/16text-debate.html?pagewanted=11&_r=1

As someone that holds himself out as a strong democratic supporter, Stephanopolous ought to be drawn and quartered for this question, because this is right out of the GOP playbook. For me, the most jarring part about it is that it implies, falsely, that Ayers made the statement in response to the 9/11 attacks, as if he was ratifying them or something. This, of course, isn't accurate -- the interview was conducted before 9/11, happened to come out that day, and was already at newsstands when the first plane hit -- but not only is that not clear from the way the question is asked, it actually suggests that the statement was made in the wake of those attacks. Really, really despicable.

[Jenks]

Re: Philly Debate Last Night

i liked how obama did this:

PHILADELPHIA - Remember the cookies?

Barack Obama wants to make sure that voters do, even if it was 16 years ago that Hillary Rodham Clinton created an uproar when she sniffed that she could have given up her career and "stayed home, baked cookies and had teas."

While Clinton brought up the problems Obama could face in a general election if he's nominated, Obama used a two-hour debate Wednesday night to remind Americans what they don't like about his opponent and her husband, Bill, the former president. Both candidates argued they were tough enough to withstand whatever Republicans try to use against them.

Obama raised President Clinton's controversial pardons on his last day in office. And he wanted Americans to know that Hillary Clinton repeatedly called him names in the past few days.

The point was to tie Clinton to the divisive politics of the past at a time when a new poll shows that a majority of voters view her as dishonest. The loss of voters' trust comes as Clinton has been attacking Obama for comments he made recently about Pennsylvania voters who "cling to guns or religion" because they are "bitter" about the economy — statements that he maintains he mangled.

"During the course of the last few days, you know, she's said I'm elitist, out of touch, condescending," Obama said.

"You take one person's statement, if it's not properly phrased, and you just beat it to death," he added. "And that's what Senator Clinton's been doing over the last four days."

Despite the signs that her criticisms may be backfiring, Clinton did not pull her punches against Obama. Yet she tried to soften the blows by delivering them in polite tones and often with a smile. She said his "bitter" comments demonstrated a misunderstanding of religion in people's lives. And she said he has other weaknesses that could hurt him in the general election — his relationship with a controversial pastor and 1960s radical William Ayers.

"I've been in this arena for a long time," Clinton said. "I have a lot of baggage, and everybody has rummaged through it for years. And so, therefore, I have an opportunity to come to this campaign with a very strong conviction and feeling that I will be able to withstand whatever the Republicans send our way."

Obama wanted to make sure voters remembered some of that baggage, but he also raised it in measured tones. He used sympathetic terms in bringing up the cookie quote that led critics to label Clinton as some sort of ultra-feminist.

"She has gone through this," Obama said. "I recall when, back in 1992, when she made a statement about how, what do you expect, should I be at home baking cookies? And people attacked her for being elitist and this and that. And I remember watching that on TV and saying, `Well, that's not who she is. That's not what she believes. That's not what she meant.'

"And I think Senator Clinton learned the wrong lesson from it because she's adopting the same tactics," Obama said.

Clinton said she was concerned about Obama's association with Ayers, a former member of the Weather Underground who Clinton pointed out said in an interview published on Sept. 11, 2001, that he didn't regret bombing government buildings. Obama quickly responded that Clinton's husband pardoned one member of Weather Underground and commuted the sentence of another.

"Look, there is no doubt that the Republicans will attack either of us," Obama said. "What I've been able to display during the course of this primary is that I can take a punch. I've taken some pretty good ones from Senator Clinton."

[CactusBeats]

Re: Philly Debate Last Night

Here's the deal -- I understand that these are issues on voters minds and they are fair game. On the other hand, the process seemed to be weighted so heavily in favor of negative questions, there was scarcely any time to discuss policy at all. I think we were an hour into the debate before there was a question that wasn't of the "gotcha" variety.

Thoughts?

Just goes to show, the debate really wasn't news at all. It has been dumbed-down (just like the evening news) to "infotainment." It's about ratings in this media market and "gotcha" gets ratings, period.

I would really love to see some policy debates that really get into it. Say maybe for two or three hours. Never would that happen.

[Miroslav]

Re: Philly Debate Last Night

it was just a ridiculous debate, probably worst we've ever had to endure. made me not want to ever vote again.

[88Mariner]

Re: Philly Debate Last Night

oh hilarious. clinton trying to tie obama with the weather underground?

ok

back a while ago, a few puerto ricans smuggled in some guns to assassinate harry truman.

guess who sent them free?


bill effin' clinton.

talk about being tied with mischevous criminals.....