I’m not alone in saying Wednesday night’s Democratic debate was by far the worst so far. But I have a very specific problem with the debates in general, and tonight’s in particular.
We tend to be too credulous in describing these media events as debates. Tonight’s broadcast was certainly not a debate. The main idea was not to compare the two candidate’s philosophies and governing agendas. It was to force each candidate into a live forum in which they would have to explain previous gaffes. Obama clearly got the brunt of the format, having to answer for pretty much every conservative innuendo about him except for his middle name.
For example, Obama sort of, kind of knows a guy who was in the Weather Underground. They met once or something; no one is able to prove they ever had a meaningful professional or personal relationship and it’s clear they won’t. Yet Obama, in the public forum the network provides, is forced to convince the moderators that he’s not sympathetic to the Weather Underground.
Worse, the moderators get away with merely making an innuendo, instead of coming out with the obvious implication of the question: Will Obama govern on behalf of the Weather Underground? It’s obvious why they don’t just come out and say that: it would reveal the absurdity of the questioning. Most people don’t believe Obama is pursuing the Presidency as a proxy of radical groups and Black Muslims. They don’t believe it because it’s clearly not true: he’s been in government for years and no one has proved him to have acted on behalf of any radical groups. Yet two journalists, on a network broadcasting on the public spectrum, imply as much at what they would pompously insist is public forum, in the very hall dedicated to our governing contract.
But if it isn’t Obama and some “tenured radical” it’s something else. Let’s make Hillary talk again about her boneheaded narrative of her trip to Tuzla twelve years ago. Let’s ask Barack why he doesn’t wear a flag pin, even though he’s explained his reasoning several times before. The idea is not to criticize any specific ideas of even associations, but to put the candidates in a position in which they are likely to make a mistake. The “journalists” ask broad questions and emphasize that the candidate has a fixed amount of time to answer them. All the questions are on personality-based, media-generated controversies. This does not make a public forum, it makes a factory for the week’s political stories: What the candidate did or did not say; if he used the right word; if he stumbled, tripped, or mumbled.
Modern, corporate political journalism—in all its Blitzerian wide-eyed stupidity—simply creates unreasonable demands on the political discourse. The market won’t bear too much high-level policy discussion while the balance sheet requires more and more live political programming during campaign season. Therefore, we get distinctly American travesties like the ABC debate: the last free forum the candidates will get on the public airwaves is dedicated to nothing more than creating gaffes to be analyzed on tomorrow’s broadcasts.
—Douglas Carlucci
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