About those debates...
... I'll get to them in more detail later. But I seem to never be able to agree with the media on anything ...
The first Obama-McCain debate was generally unsatisfying, mostly because McCain kept uttering the same old platitudes but came across as a vaguely wise (if cranky and often incoherent) old soldier. Obama managed to get his points across well enough, and seemed vastly more informed and presidential, but ... I guess I was just hoping for a slam-dunk, and of course Obama is too disciplined to risk unleashing the fury on America's favorite POW senator like he could have. I mean, there were plenty of lies he could have overturned, but ...
... THEN there was the Biden-Palin debate, and by all relevant measures (points made, points refuted, questions actually answered, basic credibility, etc.) Biden completely ran away with it, as expected ...
... but in both cases the media coverage wasn't about how the actual debates went -- as in, how what they said matched up with reality -- but rather focused almost entirely on how one person or the other seemed, and who was more "folksy", or more likely to appeal to this demographic or that. In other words, once again the American press focused on completely unsubstantial crap.
Luckily, according to the polls, the American People came away from the first one encouraged about Obama. This was possibly because most of them were seeing him for the first time without a script, and discovered that he's actually intelligent and impressive and believable, and realized that all those nasty e-mails they've been getting about him being a muslim terrorist, empty suit, America-hater etc. etc. etc. were just B.S. from the other side.
Amazingly, all I heard about the Biden debate was how Biden won BUT ... Palin somehow "redeemed herself" -- which I thought was completely preposterous.
Please watch that debate if you haven't, and decide if she came across as a potential president or more as a pretty, plucky little robot who reads index cards well. I mean, seriously: She didn't even answer a third of the questions, and when pressed on that fact, she said something to the effect of "Gwen I may not answer questions the way you want, but Joe Six-pack out there is tired of you nasty media elites telling me how I have to answer questions, oh, you betcha!"
And all the little winks and "you betcha" colloquialisms might have been at least charming if it wasn't so obviously a result of her coaching -- a calculated, focus-grouped appeal to middle-class, blue-collar demographics ... or whatever.
On the up-side, things are looking brighter for Obama, despite the media's absence on the responsibility front, but the Palin-McCain camp has shown that they are capable of such subterfuge and malfeasance that I still fear for this country.
Heck, I fear for it even if my candidate wins at this point -- but at least the ship would be turning around, instead of heading over the edge of the Earth...
