Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine See anything other than the "debates," I beg you

Save your sanity and intellect. Don't waste your life on the Presidential "debates," which begin tonight, with three other occasions (one with the Veep nominees) in the next two weeks.

You're only going to get a joint news conference, tied up in spin calculated to the last eyelash-raising and platitude. It's all framed in terms of getting "likability" quotients raised.

Any electorate that uses "likability" to decide who has operational custody of ten thousand nuclear weapons deserves the disasters that will be visited upon it.

Do something productive: Watch a movie on HBO. Play with your kids on the carpet. Visit a bordello. Buy some more Powerball tickets. Post at Legion World, if you can't think of anything else

But don't endorse this dual-chowderhead comedy by watching it. Nothing will be said of substance. The only substance in this election comes from Badnarik (Libertarian), Peroutka (Constitution), and Nader (Greens and Reform), in that descending order. And those parties' nominees aren't going to be allowed to be present.

Boycott this non-event, and save your sanity.

{here endeth the rant}

Very well said and I agree. I know who I'm voting for and I don't want to participate in the media spectacle.

I'm with you guys.

I've always thought the debates were unfair to the other parties (with the exception of Ross Perot's inclusion at one point).

Why don't the others get to participate?

Oh, I'll probably watch, and not because I believe these debates to be anything than what you described, Grey. I can't stop watching Kerry. It's like a fucking car crash. If he would just step up, say what he means, mean what he says and tell us what he thinks is going wrong in this country and how he wants to fix it, I think he could/would win. But that's not what politics is about in this country any more, and even worse, it doesn't seem to be what anyone WANTS politics to be about any more. The presidential election has turned into reality TV--which is neither reality or good TV. How the hell have we come to this?

Your local Green has to nitpick this, Nader does not represent the Greens this year. The Greens' candidate this year is Cobb and, while he is a great candidate, he is focusing his efforts largely in states where he is required to get a minimum % of the popular vote for the party to maintain state recognition (a valuable thing for getting those local offices that people always complain third parties don't persue).

For more info on Cobb see: http://www.votecobb.org/

I dunno if we should be so quick to dismiss the debates. These will very likely be the deciding factor for millions of "undecided" voters.

Not for me, of course. I'm VERY decided already.

Two incompetents, neither of whom is qualified for the job. Hmm. I'll pass.

Well, I watched some of the debate and enjoyed it immensely -- it's the best free entertainment around.

Some highlights:

-- Bush being visibly livid when Kerry referenced his father, Bush, Sr.

-- Kerry working in whenever he could how he protected this country as a young man.

-- Both of them trading faint praises on the issue of character.

-- Kerry backing away from the stronger word (liar), but still insisting that Bush "misled" the American public.

-- Bush getting confused about who attacked the US, then taking umbrage when Kerry pointed out his lapse.

I'm fairly decided about who I'm going to vote for, though I try to keep up an open mind. However, you won't find much to sway you either way in these debates. It's all about salesmanship, and both candidates are expert salesmen: Kerry with his poise and patient explaining, Bush with his populist plain-spokenness and we-don't-need-no-stinking-global-approval independence. Both no doubt scored points with their respective supporters.

I thought this debate was by far the best I've seen in quite awhile.

Thank goodness for the Daily Show - where else can you get an accurate, unbiased opinion on the foibles of both candidates

I listened to a chunk of it on the radio walking home from the train station and the thing that stuck me was how quickly Bush started repeating himself. It seemed like most of Kerry's answers went into new territory, information-wise, while Bush kept trying to bring things back to some of the key phrases of the campaign. Overall, what I heard was one candidate who was knowledgable about the issues and another who was versed in framing campaign rhetoric but not the details or reasoning behind the rhetoric.

Overall, a really strong debate. Even for someone like me who's done plenty of studying into the issue, it was an interesting discourse.

Heh, I'm never sure whether to take such statements seriously or facetiously. I have said that, sadly, the Daily Show is often the only one making observations that the serious media should be regularly making (like all the times the Daily Show juxtaposes conflicting statements by the Bush cabinet or even just Bush -- there should at least be reporters asking "But didn't you say two months ago...?").

Then again, I'm not the biggest cable news geek. I hear there's a few of shows that do discuss those conflicting statements, but that's a small number out of how many hours. When I take a casual glance at the news they're not talking about the more glarings problems with the statements, they're just passing the statements along without question.

Still last night's Daily Show was an absolute peak in a year that's been amazing. Samantha Bee's story about undecideds was so damn funny.

And after all this, Kerry actually kicks a little bit of ass in the first debate. Interesting, huh?

Very true. Actually, on a whole range of issues, only the Daily Show has the cajones to pick at the corporate-news spin.