Media, ducks, and evil

These fucking debates… [read the transcript if you didn’t see it.]

Let me set aside my critiques of the candidates for a moment to attack our media and the debates themselves. Let’s start with the debates. First, I have a new policy… let the people ask the fucking questions! The town hall had the best questions by far out of any of the debates. If you noticed, I only went into the first 14 questions because I figured I’d get to cover the domestic stuff with this debate.

Not so!

Where were the questions on:

1. Gas prices
   
2. Stem cell research
   
3. Energy policy
   
4. Transportation policy
   
5. Outsourcing [they dodged it]
   
6. Environment
   
7. Defense spending
   
8. Education [though Bush brought it up, it wasn’t it’s own topic]
   
9. Faith-based initiatives
   

These were the questions:

1. Will our children be as safe as we were? – a total nod to the foreign policy debates and the nature of this election… that’s all well and good but we’ve done about 2 hours on that shit. MOVE ON!
   
2. How did the U.S. end up with a flu vaccine shortage? - the first question about health care.
   
3. With rising costs, how do you keep from raising taxes? - the first question about taxes.
   
4. What do you say to someone who lost his job? - the first question about jobs.
   
5. Is Bush entirely to blame for loss of jobs? - the second question about jobs.
   
6. Do you believe homosexuality is a choice? - the first question about gay rights.
   
7. How does Kerry handle criticism from Catholic archbishops? - ok, while the was an interesting question, it’s something I want to hear on meet the press, not during the presidential debate. The POINT of a goddamn debate is to raise topics both sides can battle over. This really isn’t one. I know our President doesn’t know it, but we have a separation of church and state in this country. Religion and religious stance should not enter into the debates, not in this sort of question. You can argue each other’s stances on issues but not each other’s emotional state!
   
8. Who is responsible for the rising costs of health care? - the second question about health care.
   
   
9. How are Kerry’s new heath care initiatives going to be funded? - the third question about health care.
   
10. How are you going to fix social security? - the first question on Social Security.
    
11. How are you going to fund fixing social security? - the second question on Social Security.
    
12. Talk about immigration. - the first question about immigration.
    
13. Will you raise minimum wage? - the third question about jobs.
    
14. What will you do about Roe v. Wade? - the first question about abortion rights.
    
15. What will you do about the ‘back door draft’ that is in place right now? - the first question about the military.
    
16. Why did the President fail to encourage the continuance of the assault weapons ban? - the first question about gun control.
    
17. Do we still need Affirmative Action? - the first question about affirmative action.
    
18. What part does your faith play on your policy decisions? - Like I said before, separation of church and state… honestly, I think this should be an indictment of Bush for letting his faith guide his policy but whatever. This was, arguably, a more valid point than the archbishop one.
    
19. How would you unite the polarized nation? - the first question about unification and nationalism.
    
20. What did you learn from vaginas? - a total bullshit and throwaway question that pissed me off to no end.
    

Let’s do a further breakdown. There were:

• 3 health care questions
  
• 3 job questions
  
• 2 throwaway religious bullshit questions (and I say this because issues like abortion, stem cell research, faith-based initiatives, and others could have provided the requisite pandering to the Christian coalition)
  
• 2 social security questions
  
• 1 foreign policy/arguably homeland security question left over from the previous debates
  
• 1 tax question
  
• 1 gay rights question
  
• 1 immigration question
  
• 1 abortion question
  
• 1 draft/armed forces question
  
• 1 gun control question
  
• 1 affirmative action question
  
• 1 unification question
  
• 1 totally bullshit emotional pandering question

Do you know what that equals out to? A whole lot of fucking bullshit answers and wasted time, that’s what.

And where is our ‘Fair and Balanced’ media? Anyone remember the 2000 election and all the criticisms of Gore being uncomfortable or smirking or whatever? Bush shouted down a moderator, he was nervous and fidgety, he told us not to trust leading news sources… WHERE ARE YOU GUYS????? Saturday Night Live should be having a fucking FIELD DAY with this, never mind every fucking pundit in the country! But no! Hear that? That’s the sound of sycophants sucking his presidential pee-pee in every major media outlet from sea to shining sea.

It’s easy to rip into the candidates (and I’m going to get to that in my next few blogs when I go through all the questions and such again) but I think it’s important that we take a moment to recognize what an utter sham these debates have been and moreover, the entire media is.

"Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost" -Thomas Jefferson, 1786

"If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands."
Douglas Noel Adams - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, 1987