I tried to stay up and watch the "debates," but after about 30 or 40 minutes of strangely a-political questions, I turned the TV off, committing to watch debates snippets and post-debate parsing today.

I was very disappointed.

Tom Shales of the Washington Post wrote:

When Barack Obama met Hillary Clinton for another televised Democratic candidates' debate last night, it was more than a step forward in the 2008 presidential election. It was another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.

For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.

The fact is, cable networks CNN and MSNBC both did better jobs with earlier candidate debates. Also, neither of those cable networks, if memory serves, rushed to a commercial break just five minutes into the proceedings, after giving each candidate a tiny, token moment to make an opening statement. Cable news is indeed taking over from network news, and merely by being competent. (Read the rest here)

Truly, the CNN Youtube debates (even with their use of videos rife with home-grown snark) did a much better job of covering the issues, giving each candidate a good run at each question...and there were, like 48 candidates back then. Now, with only two on the Dem side, they just couldn't see their way clear to ask about the kinds of things most Americans are worried about:

• How am I going to put gas in my car this summer and what will I do if (when) my employers contracts or cancels its healthcare coverage?
• If gas is at a premium, why aren't we being told to conserve and recycle other petroleum-based products like water and soda bottles and other plastics?
• While we're at it, why are our federally-regulated fuel economy requirements for
• Given that, yes, businesses depend on illegal immigrant labor (I hate it, but it appears to be the Republican truth) and that we can't "send them back" without further deflating our economy (aside from the fact that we can't "send them back") and that they consume public aid (hospital care, for one) that the taxpayers are paying for, what do we do? People have been waiting patiently in line for decades in many cases. If they were willing to (1) disobey our laws wholesale and (2) were willing to work for (wait for it...wait for it) illegal wages, they would have been able to line-jump, too? Fair is fair.
• How are we going to get outselves out of this ruinous war?
• What are you going to immediately to beging the long process of bolstering our floundering economy?
• Given that I can't afford private school and the public schools in the major cities are failing (Indy hovers at around a 30% graduation rate with only 70% of children from the 'burbs getting their diplomas), what are you going to do to help us educate our children?

Whether or not Senator Obama "reveres the flag" or thinks that some people in Pennsylvania are bitter--people, who, by their either decidedly bitter or silent remarks have proven his point about the mounting anger of populations who are being immediately impacted by this recession (See? I said it. Don't we all feel better?) and the polarization that often accompanies it. One doesn't hear much about illegal immigration in Carmel, I would dare say. But go to Tippecanoe, Benton, Warren, Fountain or a host of other rural and semi-rural counties right here in Indiana and you'll see something stunning: guns and God and a shunning of people who are different in a degree that was almost inconsiderable just a few years ago.

On another note, something that really left my noggin aching was this morning's post-debate recap on Morning Joe. Scarborough was quick to point out that this was Barack Obama's worst performance ever, saying that he didn't effectively counter-punch Hillary Clinton's comments as what Chris Matthews called a "classic, modern contemporary policitian."

Here's the video...

Did you read the crawl at the bottom of the video? It showed the results of an NBC text poll: 78% of viewers responding said that they felt Senator Obama "won" the debate as compared to 22% for Senator Clinton. Weird.

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