Saturday, April 19, 2008

ABC Debate an Insult

The Presidential Debate moderated on ABC last Wednesday by Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos was a disgrace. Rather than concentrating on issues of substance the two "newsmen" spent the first 50 minutes on tabloid-calibre gaffe, gotcha and guilt by association bunkum. Their evident assumption that this is the kind of examination the American people want of their next potential leader is an insult not only to the intelligence of the American voter but to the democratic process itself.

There's no need to worry about Iraq. It's more important to know why Barack Obama doesn't wear a toy American flag on the lapel of his suit jacket.

Kids die because they don't have medical coverage. So what? What we really need to hear is a discussion about quotes from retired preachers from seven years ago.

Should we attack Iran next? Why would anyone care? It is more relevant to talk about how much danger Hillary Clinton faced in Bosnia thirteen years ago.

We are in a recession, gas is $3.69 a gallon, two million people face foreclosure, and with these conditions afoot the taxpayers are getting tagged for $30 billion to bail out hedge fund managers. Our journalistic whiz kids want to know how, under such circumstances, a candidate could be so "out of touch" as to dare suggest people might be bitter about the economy.

What planet are these political "experts" from? Or perhaps it would be more appropriate to ask what swamp they just crawled out of. It is hard to see how much lower this race to the bottom of infotainment can go.

Such is the level of public discourse fostered by our learned cognoscenti. This kind of stupidity will be discussed in the history classes of the future as merely one more indicator of the pathetic decline of a once-promising country.

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