... Wolf Blitzer. Or so says a guy named David Swanson: The review is pro-Kucinich; I picked it up originally at Dandelion Salad, a site that leaves no doubt about who its favorite candidate is. Even, or maybe especially, from that perspective, the CNN debate takes on an absurdly comic aspect. Host Wolf Blitzer and CNN clearly wanted to remind the candidates that the press selects the candidates; Kucinich was given one opportunity to speak during the second hour, while Senator Biden became so frustrated with CNN's banality that he eventually refused to answer one of Wolf Blitzer's questions, which puts his comment about diamonds—in the wake of an incredibly stupid audience question given Hillary Clinton, and the New York Senator's ridiculous answer—in an interesting context. It looks like the "liberal media conspiracy" aimed to suppress any genuinely liberal discussion in this debate. As Swanson notes: "Wolf Blitzer lost this one. The ranks of non-voters probably won." I guess that means the real losers are the American people at large. And, by proxy, I suppose, the rest of the world.
With the way Hillary tried to intimidate Wolf, and with all the recent discoveries of different plants, the one to get hurt will be Hillary
Hillary did fine. I agree with the assessment of Blitzer, his style of questioning would be more appropriate on a news show, where they have to make a profit and ratings matter. Even so, they managed to address a variety of issues. I like Biden more and more.
Democratic Debate on CNN: And the loser is ... the voting public. This was not a true debate where candidates were asked to defend positions in response to tough questions. It was a love fest between Wolf Blitzer and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Bill Richardson, whose candidacy was nowhere, was allowed to talk almost as long as the front-runners. Coincidence?
What stuns me about Hillary is that the media seems determined to assert a certain influence over the gender question. I think that's why they've crowned her the Democratic nominee. I mean, at the same time that we're supposed to be looking past the issue of her sex, the diamonds or pearls question was the first and most frequent thing I came across in the wake of the debate; it has received inordinate attention. Biden would make a good president, I think. But he's not electable. I mean, in part he looks like he's suffering delusions of grandeur: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Biden: I'm so great, I'll someday be on a coin .... Okay, okay ... I admit it was my second-string joke. I was hoping to find a good wild-eyed frame next to Edwards, and then go pull a shot of Doc and Marty from Back to the Future, but it just didn't work out that way. • • • I'm going to say "No", and postulate (for the hell of it) that it was about keeping the discussion away from certain issues, like ending the war immediately, impeaching Bush and Cheney ... you know, all the actually liberal stuff that Kucinich happens to be advocating, and that Democrats, Republicans, and CNN at least would prefer to avoid. The end result is a continuing drift; the center moves farther and farther to the right. Soon enough Poppy Bush is going to look like a "liberal" because he had to raise taxes, and didn't go all the way to Baghdad. What about you, though? What's your theory?
40% of the American people at large, maybe. But not the other 40% Republican, or the 20% Independent. Your's is a pretty weak proxy that imagines the rest of the world will be any less a loser if a Dem is President. We of the 20 laugh at the impotence of your Uber40 and your crying in the night.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Keep laughing until you wake up to the dump you've helped turn this country into. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Puerile. The point is about the decline of political discourse in order to accommodate the growing thirst for the vapid and irrelevant, thereby allowing manipulation of the ideological marketplace in a manner akin to, say, the pop music charts. Cheer up, though. You're in vogue. People really do seem to want their politics substance-free.
A good point. I still stand by my ascertion that he's the best Democratic cantidate, but is only in the mix to throw his hat in to the VP ring. He's a long standing friend of the Clintons and was an insider (first as Ambassador to the UN and then Sec of Energy) of said administration. He's Hillary's obvious choice for Veep. He's a guy, he's white enough to not alienate male voters who might flee at too much diversity, and he'll sweep the hispanic vote because of the obvious fact that he's half Mexican. The Dems don't have to worry about the black vote-- it's theirs; it's the hispanic vote that might sway towards Republicans. This mix (Clinton/Richardson) captures all the vitals (party base + women + blacks + hispanics) without overly alienating white men (who, pretty much, aren't budging on their dislike of Hillary). ~String
I can't like Richardson after I heard his grand plan of providing water to the Southwest by taking it from the Great Lakes. I don't like that thought process.
Richardson was obviously running interference for Clinton and trying to drag the debate back to the center, as Tiassa sort of suggests. He's likely doing this because he will be Hillary's VP nominee. The fact CNN let him do it is another question entirely. I heard today on the radio that all of the 'audience questions' were plants with ties to the party or political organizations. Is this true? If so, it strikes me as amusing, and typical. I recently wrote a story about my state's Lt. Gov holding a "town hall meeting." Problem was the majority of the attendees were insiders and those who got to ask questions were all very much insiders. The American political process is about the illusion of participation, the illusion that the politicians care about what the electorate actually thinks... I have to say, I don't like Edwards (a charlatan) or Kucinich (a kook), but at least you know what their platform is. They answer questions (for the most part) annunciate their views clearly and continue to drive home the same themes. In other words, they don't waffle and they don't parse. Of course, neither of them have a chance, so what that says about the process, I don't know. It seems everyone running for president has to downplay who they really are and hide what they stand for (in both parties).
It seems that a lot of the talk about audience plants is coming from Democratic supporters. I'll give this some deeper consideration when I get back north, but for now it's hard to tell what the hell people are talking about. I obviously haven't hit on the right news/commentary sources. Curious, indeed.
