Some thoughts on last night's Dem debate

Presidential debate circuses tend to come in two forms, neither of which is particularly excusable. But they are what we've come to expect and therefore must be grimly tolerated. The first form is driven by one or a panel of celebrity-journalists who are there to 1) bring as much attention to themselves and their eminence as possible and 2) ask an unrelenting series of idiotic hypothetical questions as though we were playing some stupid house party game. "What would you do if...?" is, I'm sure, compelling television for a lot of people, but it doesn't really help us learn anything useful about the candidates.. or the issues for that matter.. beyond whatever version of them Wolf Blitzer prefers to fantasize about. "Raise your hand", if you're tired of these idiotic gimmicks.

The second format models itself after the ever-popular daytime talk show. Candidates sit in a semi-circle and answer questions posed, not by the smug asshole celebrity-journalists, but by a selection of smug asshole "likely voters" in the audience who just can't wait to get on TV and tell Joe Biden that they once owned a hair salon or some other pointless bullshit about their lives before they ask their pointless bullshit question. The candidate then gives a pointless bullshit answer.. but in an emotive way making sure to use the questioner's name a few times.. and, for bonus points, display some conversance with the questioner's personal details. "And you, know, Bob I also have (or once had) hair. That's quite a business to be in." (Big stupid smile)

The great thing about last night's event was that CNN decided to go with both formats. The debate came in two rounds. In the first round, the candidates fielded some serious "What would you do if..."s from Wolf Blitzer and a panel of local New Hampshire info-tainers. In the second, they reconvened for the Oprah-style format and competed to be the feeliest of the pain of audience questioners. In the middle, there was.... a Halftime Show!

That's right, a halftime show in the debate. During the intervening three minutes between the forums, debate viewers were treated to... half-time analysis from CNN talking heads. Anderson Cooper, Larry King.. and I think Terry Bradshaw and Jimmy the Greek provided analysis of who was leading, how someone else could come back. There were also scores and highlights from other debates that night. (I remember seeing something about how the Texas A&M debate team pulled off a stunning upset over Yale with a last minute point-of-order. Elsewhere, Less Filling slogged out a bloody victory over longtime rival Tastes Great.) Meanwhile, back in the debate hall, the candidates had all made their way to the edge of the platform where onlookers could approach and, for a few minutes, touch the candidate of their choice. I'm not sure what this spectacle says about us, but the half-time petting zoo should be a mandatory element of every debate for the remainder of this election season.

And now.. highlights from last night's game:

• Hilary's strategy was to, as much as possible, minimize her opponents' "differences" with her on the war. At every opportunity, she made certain to say something like "Everyone on this stage wants to get out of Iraq..." in order to hopefully implicate everyone in her record of cowering before Bush, and voting for his war and even parroting his talking points.. which is something she continued to do last night. Hilary made two statements which could have come right out of the standard neo-con playbook. In the opening moments of the debate, while the very topic at hand was the excessive sloganeering in support of the war, she used a line about how terrorists "foist their way of life on us"... a line that derives directly from the fallacious "Clash of Civilizations" storyline so popular among war fantasists. Later, she asserted that the Iraqis have "failed to take advantage" of the "opportunity" presented to them by the invasion and destruction of their country. That's not just reptillian. It's downright Cheneyesque



• Nearly as bad was Joe Biden who loudly proclaimed the neo-con talking point that voting to de-fund the war was somehow "endangering the troops." Actually, Biden loudly proclaimed just about everything he said last night... as though his handlers specifically instructed him to shout.



• Why does Wolf hate Bill Richardson so much? Granted, he's a bit of a weasel, but no more so than anyone else up there. It just seemed like Blitzer took particular delight in cutting him off all night.



• Mike Gravel had two golden moments last night. The first was this, "It doesn't mean (the other candidates are) bad people, it just means that they don't have moral judgment,.." The second came at the end of the debate when an audience member asked the candidates to describe their immediate priorities in their first 100 days in office. Gravel said, "Top priority is to turn to these people and say they're part of the leadership right now in the Congress. They could end the war if they want to --" In other words, Gravel's first priority would be... to continue to berate his opponents.



• Although, Chris Dodd, while talking mostly about earmarks, muttered the word "Katrina" the Gulf Coast recovery was not a topic for discussion.

For the next debate, I'm bringing a bottle of tequila from which I will take one shot every time a person utters the phrase "moving forward." You may alert the paramedics in advance if you like.

Update: Today's Howler offers a similar take on Blitzer's stupid line of questioning.