The Great (or not-so-great) Debate

By Quill and Farol

UPDATED BELOW
UPDATE II

So if you haven't watched the recent Democratic debate held in Philly on Wednesday, lucky you! You missed one of the most atrocious examples of shoddy and self-righteous journalism ever to play out in front of a mass audience here in the U.S. We mean ever. (No, we haven't forgotten Tim Russert.)

Basically, ABC News (the host of the debate) had two of their stooges, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos go on stage and re-hash (for the first 45 minutes of the debate) a whole bunch of petty, insignificant questions about the kind of drivel that the media has been blithering on about for the past month or so, including flag pins, sniper fire, America-hating pastors, aging members of the Weather Underground, and small-town bitterness.

Arguably worse was some of the coverage the debate received in the mainstream media. As Glenn Greenwald notes, in their report on the debate in yesterday's Washington Post, Anne Kornblut and Dan Balz devoted about 97 paragraphs to recounting this trivial bullshit, before remarking that "the debate also touched on Iraq, Iran, the Middle East, taxes, the economy, guns and affirmative action."

Because, after all, the little people out there are just too darned ignorant to understand or care about boring stuff like that. As Greenwald argues in his take of the debate, journalists repeatedly choose to dish this deliciously dirty personality-based politics out because they consider themselves the true representatives of where the "salt of the earth", down-home, small-town average people want to see the political discourse go.

Of course, in reality this is a disgustingly condescending and hypocritical self-designation of the press and punditry class to take on. When is the last time these overpaid gasbags ever had to choose between flute lessons for the kids or saving for retirement because their job has stopped paying overtime? Or when is the last time they prayed that it wasn't "the call" every time the phone rang, because their child was in Iraq? Answer: Never. They simply want to feel important while being big slackers: the less substance in their reports, the less they actually have to work on doing their Goddamn job.

Time and again, poll after poll shows that what most concerns the American people is the ever-faltering economy, Iraq, and health-care. Why then, are we getting 45 minutes of vapid nonsense when we should be forcing the presidential candidates to answer tough questions about how the hell they plan to clean up after Bush and the kids in his administration?

Various right-wing talking heads have suggested that the only people who should be angry about this travesty are supporters of Clinton and (especially) Obama. It is true, of course, that Republicans are largely pleased with the debate (because it plays right into their talking points), and Democrats are fuming. But you shouldn't have to be an Obama supporter to care about journalistic integrity. Here at DisPro, we have often voiced sharp criticism of Obama, and we wouldn't consider ourselves unconditional Obama (or Clinton) supporters. Indeed, while the odious likes of David Brooks (and Stephanopoulos himself) go to great lengths to defend their despicable dialog, the truth is that, according to a poll conducted by the Philadelphia Daily News, 85% of Americans are disgusted with the debate that took place on Wednesday. It was a complete waste of their time. And yet, in a testament to the true scale of egoism these so-called "journalists" possess, even after hundreds of angry blog posts and thousands of disgruntled comments on ABC's website, both moderators can't seem to find anything wrong with their pathetic performance.

Ultimately, the debate provided a good look at how low our political discourse has sunk in this country, thanks to ABC ogres like Gibson and Stephan-umpa-loompoulos and their disgraceful sycophants in the media.

Update:
MoveOn is conducting a petition to ABC concerning the networks outrageous lack of substance in the debate and demanding better coverage in the future. You can sign it here. You know you want to. Do it. Go on, do it. Please?

Update II:
What was Joan Walsh thinking?!