The Very Serious Debate, Starring The Very Serious George & Charlie

Read more reactions from Huffington Post bloggers to ABC's Pennsylvania Democratic debate

We like to joke about the "very serious" traditional media. The truth is that while they claim exclusive lordship over integrity and professionalism -- not to mention a corner on the world's supply of pants made of smarty -- they're really a freak show with serious haircuts and suits. They're a wing of the Republican corporatist conspiracy against America. And the very serious moderators of last night's Democratic debate couldn't have been less serious if they had been wearing clown suits made of dildos while simultaneously tickling each other with monkeys.

I don't really even need to write this. The nation has witnessed, firsthand, George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson for who they really are: pandering yellow journalists. Carnival barkers. They're Penn & Teller without the talent or insight.

To wit... 50 minutes without a single substantive question. Fifty.

Hell, a 50-minute episode of America's Funniest Videos, for example, is at least good for a talking cat or a sucker-punch to the nards. Of course, that's not meant to impugn either of the Democratic candidates for their part. Here we had two members of the very serious traditional media going after two Democrats in ways which they have never challenged members of the Bush administration -- despite the Bush Republican record of disaster after disaster after disaster. In fact, George and Charlie made the FOX News Channel debates, with all of their Love American Style graphics and fire alarms and wacky fart sound effects, look like the goddamn Continental Congress.

I was just waiting for Charlie Gibson to hurl a fist full of lapel pins at Senator Obama while shouting, "Where's Natalie Holloway, Senator? Where?! Prove to me that you don't have her locked inside of your Silence of the Lambs dungeon, you pinhead!" Then Stephanopoulos with the inevitable, "Senator Clinton, do you think Senator Obama is more patriotic than the dreaded Bat Boy?"

Whether the questions were about Wright and Bosnia, or about guns and Iran, every single topic was framed from the perspective of the Republicans, with an eye on what the Republicans might say about him or her in the general election. So, I have to ask: since when did this become a primary race about which Democrat most resembles George W. Bush and John W. McCain?

It confounds logic that, on one hand, Senator Obama is repeatedly asked to explain why rural America is bitter, while, on the other hand, his qualifications for the presidency are being evaluated based on his goddamn bowling skills. Seriously, what the hell is going on here? The Bush Republicans are responsible for perhaps the worst economic crisis since World War II. They're responsible for a $3 trillion occupation and decades of future blowback. They're responsible for selling our sovereignty to foreign governments. They're responsible for trampling our liberty and national character. And there was Senator McCain on Hardball the other night talking about war in Iran, while pledging to make permanent the Bush tax cuts for the super rich. Both of which would make matters far, far worse.

Meanwhile, how are we evaluating the would-be Democratic nominee? Based on orange juice, of course. Why? Because the Republicans say so.

After the beating we've taken regardless of party or ideology, we ought to be demanding -- as a nation -- that the Bush Republicans shut up and sit down for a while (in a figurative sense of course). In other words, the party that spent this decade masturbating to videotape of George W. Bush clearing brush while America was raped and beaten into a transcontinental buffet of shitkebobs, doesn't get to dictate the rules this time. No sir. And shame on Stephanopoulos and Gibson for allowing it.

Last night exemplified the pathetic truth that the very serious traditional media would otherwise be lost and confused without its Mad Libs script for presidential elections. It's a script that's been systematically and deliberatively co-written by Rove-style operatives in conjunction with corporations for the purposes of ratings, ad revenue and ever-narrowing control over the government. The script serves, first and foremost, to help the Republicans, and it takes the painful burden of "original thought" and "insight" off the shoulders of pundits such as the two hack/sock puppets who hosted last night's debate. Win, win.

What we have seen recently -- and especially last night -- has been nothing less than the very serious traditional media attempting to sculpt and shoe-horn the narrative based on what has been previously scripted by their authoritarian, oligarchic bosses. That is... The Democratic nominee has to be elitist and effete. The Republican has to be a cowboy (a maverick IS a cowboy, by the way). Democratic gaffes help the Republicans. Republican gaffes are silly "senior moments" or "plain-spoken" talk. Diplomacy is weak. Endless war is American. And on and on and on.

The most disappointing aspect to this Bush Republican script is that Senator Clinton is pandering to it, and her recent performances are almost as transparently bad as the George & Charlie Puppet Theater last night. The goals, at the end of the day, are similar. For the television news media, it's about ratings no matter what. For Senator Clinton, it's about winning no matter what. She has abandoned her integrity in favor of Republican tactics. I fail to see anything which is admirable or redeeming when Senator Clinton invokes "San Francisco" (which is Republican code for "gay"); or when she implies that Senator Obama isn't ready to protect us from the evildoers; or when she chugs a shot and beer in plain view of an entire nation of impressionable teen girls (while inexplicably attempting to ban video games with her friend Zell Lieberman).

Senator Clinton's desperate pandering to the Bush Republican script notwithstanding, the debate last night proved that the very serious traditional media is only "very serious" about distraction and superficiality. But those flaws are only the means to a larger end. Last night's debate proved what we've all been observing. To paraphrase the great Naomi Klein: it's increasingly impossible to tell where Karl Rove ends and where the very serious traditional media begins.

The ABC switchboard phone number: 212-456-7777

Read more reactions from Huffington Post bloggers to ABC's Pennsylvania Democratic debate

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Comments

[heavyrunner]

I would recommend getting your TV from Dish Network and then not paying the $5 a month extra for the "Locals," which is the networks. I am much happier when I don't watch them at all.

It shouldn't surprise anyone that the big media presents the viewpoint of the top 1% financially. That's who owns and operates them, and the newspeople and talking heads are very nearly that rich themselves and probably imagine they are part of the 1% whose positions they so faithfully represent.

It is absurd that people like John McCain and Hillary Clinton are presented as serious choices to lead our country.

[dumboldman]

Look, I realize the Democrat party is currently split into two warring and vocal camps.
For Obama we have:
a) professional students, socialist professors and other hopeful losers, posting on HuffPo and sponging off their hated Uncle Sam;
b) fellow Ivy Leaguers, who we know have had particularly difficult lives;
c) school teachers; who pass their days trying to impress their tiny troupes, and protecting their Union rights;
d) hyphenated racists living on the public dole, or mainstreamed through affirmative action;
e) women lacking self control, but afraid of being “punished with a child”, and the gutless men who abandon them;
f) guilt ridden liberal elites, who love all people, except conservative Christians, and gun clinging ignorant white men;
g) greens, preferring to freeze in the dark waiting for global warming, rather than building nuclear power plants or drilling off the Florida coast (where Cuba, China, and their other socialist friends are currently drilling);
h) others who have never worked in their life, and have the audacity to hope they never have to;
i) Oprah and Friends;
j) The Main Stream Media (except Charlie and George)
And on Clinton’s side:
a) United Auto Workers, crying in their Toyotas , while their “jobs are shipped overseas”;
b) Bowlers, barflies, duck hunters, and stretchers of the truth;
c) Elton John;
d) Rush and Ann;
e) Charlie and George.
But hey, when the party comes together; what an awesome team!

[TellitLikeItIs]

dum bold man: You're truly a ray of sunshine.

[clevelandchick]

Oh, look it's Archie Bunker's evil twin.

[ILliberalPedagogue]

GREAT POST !!

[druidmary]

what angry Obama fans. Yes I say fans. I feel like this is an Anerican Idol contest.
he got questioned. Hope is down the drain.
get real. do any of these protesters really watch ABC news?

Thank you ABC

[kylie]

The sad thing is, Hillary is actually turning alot of her followers into a semi-Republican cult.

They have negated all things good, as "Evil" in the Democratic Party, and blindly followed Hillary into some delusional political right of center land.

It would almost appear that Clinton is a plant for the Republicans.

She raves about McBush, exhibits GOP campaign tactics, uses every opportunity to slam Obama, and seems oblivious that she is doing damage to the political party she claims to be a member of.



Twilight Zone time.

[Liverp2]

MY DITTO IS FOR THE PERSON NAMED DRUID MARY.
I AGREE WITH HER AND DISAGREE WITH THE OBAMA FANS

[snarbagel]

Hillary is not turning her followers into a semi-republican cult. Neither is Obama. But, the unreasonableness and mean-spirited misunderstanding of some of his supporters is preventing Obama from putting together the coalition he said he could deliver and is necessary to win. His unity message falls short in the face of genuine political and ideological differences that are difficult to bridge.

Because this has happened before in the democratic party, I can see that this particular snark group is not solely to blame. There was McGovern (anti-war, a brilliant and good man,) Carter (anti-Washington, a brilliant and good man), and Gore (an 8 year experienced VP, a brilliant and good man.) The conflict of ideologies within our party, though minimal in comparison to the other party, is played out in a repeating theme.

I don't expect a genuine response to my concern, only another propaganda post. Alas.

[Liverp2]

DITTO

[marko77]

Liver2"

Liver-who-­loves-Rove­2: Obama will win despite the best efforts of dirty tricksters. They've had their way for 8 years and it's time to go down.

[lady49]

Said IT better

[lady49]

Bob,
great job! I couldn't have said i better myself!!

[BinBaldwin]

Tough Questions and Obama gets mad and wants to take his marbles and go home. Whining little baby

[Ironfox]

BinBaldwin; denial is such a comforting delusion is'nt it?

[PhDiva]

Oh, yeah, and Hillary never whines. Don't you remember when she whined DURING the debate about getting the firsts question and a number of other things.

[Manx]

Your post is one of the best I've read on the subject. Speaking of flag pins and patriotism reminds me of this quote:

In time of war, the loudest patriots are the greatest profiteers.

[LollieDotCom]

NOTHING SAYS "LESS BULLSHIT AND MORE REAL NEWS" BETTER THAN
BOYCOTTING THE SPONSORS OF THEIR TWO SHOWS UNTIL AFTER THE NOVEMBER ELECTION.

That's what I'm going to do. How bout you?

I truly believe that debate is the worst gaffe Charlie or George either one ever made and I just know they'll never do anything so poorly again. However, I'm still going to watch each of their shows one more time to write down their sponsors names and I'm boycotting their sponsors from now until the election in November. Not a permanent or devastating punishment for their temporary ignorance, but if all of us did the same thing, it would send a message to all of the news media that a little less bullshit for the ratings and a lot more real news for the American people is in order.

Another part of me thinks maybe George and Hillary are still good buddies. I mean hell, all you have to do is count the number of minutes they grilled her and the number of minutes they grilled him to see how biased this debate was. They grilled him for 40 or 45 minutes and the last half of the show was mostly snippets of their views and plans concerning real issues... did they think we wouldn't notice???

NOTHING SAYS "LESS BULLSHIT AND MORE REAL NEWS" BETTER THAN
BOYCOTTING THE SPONSORS OF THEIR TWO SHOWS UNTIL AFTER THE NOVEMBER ELECTION.

That's what I'm going to do. How bout you?

[Liverp2]

Not me I loved it!!!
I wish we could have more like it.
EVERY DAY

iT was great watching Obama under THE PRESSURE OF SUCH PETTY QUESTIONS, HE COULD NOT EVEN ANSWER THEM.

THEY WEREN'T PART OF HIS MEMORIZED SPEECH. DARN THEM.

WHAT GOOD IS HE..... IF HE ever FACED A REAL GROUP OF STRAIGHT QUESTIONS THAT HE HAD NOT REHEARSED THE ANSWERS FOR, LOOK AT THE WAY HE WOULD REACT.

ESPECIALLY IF THEY WERE IMPORTANT TO THE COUNTRY.

CONGRATULATIONS ABC

[Jer72]

I beg to differ, I think Obama answered those questions just fine. These kind of questions I expect to come from conservative talk radio-ente­rtainment, not real journalists like ABC. Having said that, I think I understand why they asked them (ratings, etc), now that they have been answered can we move onto something with more substance?

[marko77]

liverp2

Liver-who-­loves-rove­2: Obama will do just fine. Who do you prefer? Rove's puppet W?

[BeerHolder]

Hillary is an amoral political prostitute. A Republican tool and a fool. The entire Democratic party will go down with her nomination and then who will she blame for the failure????

I can't wait!

[Leppy311]

It is so funny to watch you libs choke away this election. When are you guys going to figure out that the majority of Americans love this country and and hate big government? I know you all think Marx was a genius and our founding fathers were a bunch of morons, but the rest of us, those of us who actually work for a living, disagree.

[Galt907]

Leppy,
you are obviously either an ostrich with your head in the sand, or the only view you have is through your navel, because your head is so far up your ass. It is the Republicans who have trashed the Constitution, and the civil rights that our Founding Father's thought vital enough not just to protect, but to specify in the first 10 amendments to The Constitution (Bill of Rights). It is the Republicans who have abused our Armed Forces. It is the Republican administration and legislature that has cut benefits to veterans, including wounded veterans and their families. It is your friends who have guaranteed poor medical treatment and unending debt repayment for future generations, so that their friends could get richer. It is you who have made our country hated throughtout the world. You and your ilk have eroded the prestige, credibility, military and economic power of this country . ..and now you expect us to thank you?

[Jer72]

It is kind of ironic; I think that Leppy is one of the guys that Obama was refering to in his "bitter" statement. These are guys that have been fooled by the Republican machine into thinking that Democrats are out to "take your guns, or your religion" or that we somehow hate America.

News flash, Democrats and liberals love America! Apparently more than than the Republicans do because we are willing to educate ourselves and be candid about Americas faults so we can take action to correct them.

Simply wearing a flag, beating the war drum, or never saying anything negative about America does not make you more patriotic, it makes you a lemming...­.....lemmy

[BetterDeadthanRedState]

I was already a little peeved from watching This Week last Sunday, or the week before, when the very serious media types around the very serious round table were talking about the bitter comments. They were mostly of the opinion that these comments which had already not even registered a blip in any Pennsylvania polls, and which I had already dismissed as much ado about nothing, were very serious indeed. If not, well, then they just needed to convince us they were and to just keep talking and talking about them until they had an effect.

It may be that anything which can be misconstrued will always be misconstrued in the worst possible way during a political campaign, but who are these great media mediators to tell us how to think and what was really said. Shame on Hillary for even venturing to step on this bandwagon. While it may be that Obama unintentionally insulted some Pennsylvanians, I think the worst insult comes from those who insult their intelligence through phony contrivances.

[buzz]

For months and months, the snarky, nasty net rots have exoriated HRC without mercy, cheering on every screaming headline -- HILLARY LIES AGAIN -- as though it was delivered by Moses.
Now, the tables turned, FOR ONCE the golden child was challenged. And all the net rots go postal.
Here's the truth. Obama has a long history of associations with extremists. If Hillary had been going to David Duke's Church for the past twenty years, what would you say then? "Leave it alone"????"
C'mon, net rots. Face it. I want to know that the guy lied when he said that he had never refused to wear an pin depicting the American flag. WHY DIDN'T THEY POINT THAT OUT???? It isn't so much that he won't wear it -- he had an explanation for not doing so -- it's that HE LIED about it, thru his teeth and with calculated precision.
WHY ARE YOU NOT COMPLAINING THAT THAT LIE WASN'T NOTED???

[RobertAndropolis]

Charles Gibson info from Wikipedia:

"Originally, Gibson planned to go into law, but reconsidered when he determined his grades were not sufficient for top tier law schools."

"Charlie Gibson's lack of preparedness or respect for the gravity in the debate was highlighted in his claim about taxes. Mr. Gibson's claim that the government can raise revenues by cutting capital gains tax is grossly at odds with what taxation experts believe."

And from Tom Shales' landmark Washington Post critique, on Gibson's first question conjuring the possiblity of the long-dead "dream ticket":

"Blunderingly he addressed an early question, about whether each would be willing to serve as the other's running mate, "to both of you," which is simple ineptitude or bad manners."

Or both. The senators stood mute, not because they didn't want to address the question (even though they didn't) but because Gibson did not direct the question to one or the other, and neiter wannted to come off as rude or pushy. That he followed up the silence with "Don't all answer at once," I tend to think was more idiocy and arrogance than anything. Welcome to GeraldoWorld, Charlie (you putz).

abcnews.go.com/s.go.com/

abc.com/[e-mail]/

Mr. David Westin, President ABC News - 212.456.77­77

[WomanInOrangeSweater]

I've watched every debate. But this one was looking so bad, I switched to American Idol. And considering they were featuring songs of Mariah Carey on AI, that had to be one bad debate.
I'm looking forward to the TMZ debates, though. I'd find questions about how to repair Brittany Spears' tarnished image at home and abroad refreshing at this point.

[bjreed]

It was definitely a circus atmosphere.

Check out http://berkeleypc.com/abc-news-democratic-debates-a-circus/

They didn't even seem like they were attempting to hide their obvious Republican Talking Points. They even called it 'The Democrat Debates' rather than the 'The Democratic Debates'.

Check out the graphic if you still have it on TIVO. Many know that Neo-Cons and the Republican Party have renamed the 'Democratic' party to the 'Democrat' party. Why? Because Democratic party was polling too well.

I hate to say it, but Barack or Hillary will lose come November. Even if it has to be a rigged election, these power-brokers are not going to let go of control of the Iraqi oil fields.

[MikeInMaine]

(Our New National Anthem: ABC News Version)

OH, GIVE ME A HOME
WHERE THE IMBECILES ROAM
AND GREED IS OUR FAVORITE DISEASE

JUST TURN OFF YOUR MINDS
KISS THE PLANET GOODBYE
GET FETAL, AND WATCH ABC

Mike Nobel, Maine
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=170140

[bjreed]

Love it. Have you set it to music yet? I just listened to your other hit, "I'm just a lonely synapse in George W Bush's brain. Sad song. lol