In the days before YouTubes and TeeVee Tubes, Americans made do with radios - stone age technology filled with transistors and radio "waves" that travelled through the air and landed on antennas. And Americans gathered around their radios for "Fireside chats" and "radio shows" that relied on listeners using the powers of their crappy "imaginations" - a plan that went horribly awry after Orson Welles broadcast his "War of the Worlds" radio show, causing normally sensible Americans to take complete leave of their senses and take to the streets in a panic because Dennis Kucinich was not there to tell us all that the aliens had come in peace. Luckily, people were hard at work on the television at the time, the popularity of which would all but ensure the dulling and destruction of our pesky "imaginations."
But, even today, silly retro-minded jerks take to the radio to broadcast things to people that are trapped in their automobiles and under heavy objects, and these broadcasts apparently include things like last night's Democratic Candidate Debate, hosted by National Public Radio. Did you miss it? That's too bad! Mike Gravel was there! Here's what happened:
QUESTION: What's the dilly-o with this N.I.E.? Does this mean we're not going to bomb the snot out of Iran?
Clinton: I'm vehement! I told this administration so. I tell everybody so! Carrots and sticks.
Gravel: Iran is not a problem and it never has been and it never will be! Let's dropkick the Presidents through the goalposts that Petraeus keeps moving!
Obama: I've always said we need diplomacy in Iran. It was the theme behind a structure I built with Legos back in kindergarten.
Dodd: Our approach is going to be like my campaign: hobbled and difficult.
Biden: Bush is outrageous! Intolerable! RRAHHH!
Edwards: I will solve the problem with European banks!
Kucinich: Like Hillary, I've been saying this is so for a long time. I've just been nicer about it.
QUESTION: Hillary, why'd you vote to make the Iran Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization?
Clinton: If it would get me elected, I'd mark Devo as a terrorist organization.
Edwards: I would mark Bush and Cheney as terrorist organizations.
Obama: I've been consistenly against saber-rattling. My record on this is solid. As an infant, I refused to even play with a rattle. Too divisive.
Kucinich: I will not put options on any tables.
Clinton: Many Senators worked furiously to clarify the meaning of Kyl-Lieberman, or, failing that, at least pretend that we did so. Carrots and sticks.
QUESTION: Why does Joe Lieberman have such a boner for bombing Iraq?
Edwards: I think Hillary is totally kidding herself.
Clinton: I understand politics! Really I do!
Gravel: If you don't want Iran to fund Hamas and Hezbollah, fine! I'll fund them my damn self!
Moderator: Uhm...WTF?
Biden: I have been laying out concrete alternatives to Bush's policy, which I will drop on the heads of our enemies.
Obama: If we didn't want to embolden Iran, why did we help to install a pro-Iran government in Iraq? Any second-grader knows that's wrong! In fact, my second grade teacher taught us this.
Edwards: European banks!
Clinton: None of us is advocating a rush to war! Just a light sprint to war, followed by a massively grueling and endless test of our endurance.
QUESTION: Why do the Muslims hate us so?
Biden: Nobody trusts us! Take it from a former plagiarist!
Edwards: It's all George Bush's fault. Before him, we were BFFs with the Muslims.
Obama: It all going to be Rudy Giuliani's fault.
Dodd: It's because not enough people speak Arabic.
Kucinich: We need to reach out to the Muslims, light some candles, put on some soft music, and freak on some bones.
QUESTION: What will future historians say of your Presidencies?
Edwards: I don't know, but it will be long-winded.
Biden: Stools! Mute buttons!
Obama: My doctrine will not be doctrinaire.
QUESTION: Here's a question about China that I hope won't devolve into discussion of poison toys.
Edwards: Sorry! DANGEROUS TOYS!
Obama: I visited Africa once. Does that count as China?
Kucinich: I am the only one who voted against China.
Clinton: I will fulfill our fiscal destiny, in accordance with THE PROPHESY.
QUESTION: Okay, fine. Dangerous Chinese toys.
Biden: They're bad. And the Chinese are ten feet tall. They're monsters!
Dodd: They're bad. But I'm not bellicose about it.
Obama: They're bad. As a two-year old, I refused to play with them.
Edwards: My children will not have Chinese toys!
Dodd: My children will play with toys from the dark, Satanic mills of Iowa.
Obama: I have three more paragraphs to say about this!
Gravel: I will run for President of China!
Kucinich: Did I mention that I voted against China?
Obama: More paragraphs!
QUESTION: Another question on dangerous toys.
Clinton: I want to make it clear that I am willing to pander to everyone who's had their lives upended by dangerous toys.
Dodd: I have always been against lead paint. I am against people getting randomly poisoned. Really, really against it.
QUESTION: What about dangerous Chinese human-rights abuses?
Biden: We need to call them on the carpet, preferably a carpet made with poisonous Chinese textiles.
Clinton: The Chinese hate me and my speeches. But I went there, and I made my speech, and while nobody heard my speech, I still sure showed them.
QUESTION: Is this an example of your history of Presidential experience?
Clinton: I have a history of horning in on all sorts of meetings!
Dodd: We gave the Dalai Lama a gold medal, and it solved everything.
Edwards: If you think China is bad, you should see the evil stuff going on in Newton, Iowa.
QUESTION: What about reviving the American textile industry?
Edwards: Textiles were made in mills and I am the son of a mill worker. My point exactly.
QUESTION: Since this is National Public Radio, here's a question on currency manipulation.
Obama: I will meet with the Chinese and totally convince them to raise their labor standards. Really. I'm sure all they need is a gentle nudge.
Biden: I will also yell at Germany and France and England. I will make sure your listeners spend the rest of the night looking up The Plaza Accords on Wikipedia.
QUESTION: Okay. If you liked this lengthy discussion on China, hold onto your hats people, because it's immigration time!
Obama: I will not deputize Americans. I will not criminalize priests.
Dodd: Illegal immigrant nanny: DO NOT WANT!
Kucinich: I do not like vigilantes, unless, of course, they want to kill NAFTA.
Clinton: Immigrants do the jobs no Americans want to do, like make my bed.
Biden: Sixty percent of illegal immigrants in this country are not Spanish-speaking, so suck it, Lou Dobbs!
Dodd: Huh? That's not right.
Biden: Okay, maybe Chris is right.
Dodd: Heck. We're both right!
Biden: Whatevs! I would never hire one of those crafty Irish.
Edwards: We need to grow a middle class in America. Or buy one from China. One that's not poisoned.
QUESTION: Senator Edwards, what rights should immigrants without proper authorization have?
Edwards: I do not know?
QUESTION: Really?
Edwards: Yep. Punt.
QUESTION: I really shouldn't let you punt.
Edwards: Yeah, well, tough.
Obama: I don't think illegals should be allowed to work in this country, but they should have a path to legalization that includes paying fines and learning English. How will they do these things without working? Don't ask me!
Kucinich: I'll let them work. And I'll bring everyone under the protections of the tiny Constitution in my pocket.
Gravel: Gosh, I haven't spoken in nearly an hour. I won't appeal to the nativist crazies!
QUESTION: Senator Clinton, when you support illegals who are working, and simultaneously vow to crack down on the employers who provide that work, isn't that a koo-koo phooey contradiction?
Clinton: No. I'm magical somehow. Remember back when the economy was awesome and no one was talking about illegal immigration? Well, who was President, then? My husband. And who was often proximally adjacent to my husband? Me. Coincidence?
QUESTION: Obama and Dodd, can you limit your responses to a mere thirty seconds?
Obama: No.
Dodd: No.
QUESTION: Senator Edwards, what about these H1B visas for highly skilled workers?
Edwards: Why can't Americans be considered highly-skilled?
QUESTION: Uhm, duh. Other people will do the jobs for less money.
Edwards: I see. Will some platitudes on the importance of education help?
Biden: I'm sick of immigrant women getting the crap beat out of them! I am against the practice of crap-beating-out-of people. Really, really against it.
Dodd: Health care!
QUESTION: What do you have to say about some woman from Boone, North Caroline whose nose is out of joint because automated messages from government offices offer Spanish speakers the opportunity to converse in Spanish?
Obama: Not much, I'm afraid.
Clinton: New York City has 170 languages and dialects, and I can slip into any one of them if the need to pander requires it.
Kucinich: Ohio's founding documents were in German! Glucklich zu sehen!
Gravel: We are being changed, man...changed by waves!
Biden: Oh, I'll learn the American people some English!
Dodd: I am the only candidate on the stage who can oprima numero dos to para me some Espanol!
Question: Is there an issue you haven't made up your mind on yet?
Clinton: I do not know how I'll solve any of our myriad problems.
Gravel: I do not know how to convince the American people that we will never be able to solve their problems.
Obama: Uhm, okay. I'll take "climate change" for $200.
Dodd: We need to grapple with education. Really Greco-Roman wrestle it or something. I own a singlet.
Biden: I know exactly what I will do on every foreign policy issue out there.
QUESTION: Anyone here want to be vice-president?
[SILENCE]
QUESTION: Are you wrestling with anything, Senator Edwards?
Edwards: Oh me, oh my! How will we destroy corporate America?
Kucinich: I wrestle with the question of whether we should impeach the president. Except I totally don't! We totally should!
QUESTION: Would you like to have another stab at actually answering this question, Senator Clinton?
Clinton: No. But George Bush is teh SUXXORS!