With all the class, all the seriousness, all the importance of a WWE fight, it all started with the moderators, on air pundits really, speculating what the weaknesses of Hillary the Loser were, how insignificant Bernie the Insignificant was, and how much less each candidates the Lesser were. The bars they had to get over were, of course, impossible. Prepare for the chair smashings, the body slams, to begin, guys and gals.
Ready, set, BARF!
My wife and I listened to, perhaps, half an hour, shut it off and went to bed.
This was not a “debate,” CNN.
We saw this shisen storm start its brown out from the start, as the candidates gathered CNN played cheesy, worse than any pre-game sports score, music under bumpers… bumpers interspersed with quick, witless, speculation about what Hillary, or Bernie, had to do to convince the public. The speculations as to what they had to do were only slightly less impossibly high dung hills to climb than speculations regarding even more marginal in polls candidates on stage who, apparently, were allowed to be there merely to be battering rams and nail spiked clubs for bloodying up the top two.
Did the MSM do this for the Republican debate? We’ve been off the grid, and I wasn’t going to torment myself by listening. I’m guessing… not. The high dung hills were mostly gone, replace by starry eyed, dreamboat-based, pro right wing Fox-i-tude.
Flash forward to CNN’s fictional, bad framing-based hills, where the mostly imaginary hills each had to climb were imagined to be beyond Everest. To quote Trump, these pretend “fair” mods had already predetermined these candidates were all the biggest “losers.”
We could only listen to satellite radio. I imagine the TV graphics were as cheesy as the audio. You most likely would know better. Worse, perhaps?
And the whoring out to advertisers! CNN: you come back from a break, say the candidates are about to introduce themselves, then go right back to yet another round of seemingly endless, revenue pumping, ads like some gym obsessed weight lifter? Really? Could you be more nakedly sucking on the adverting teat?
Probably not.
⏠ Sex workers in Maddam Legsspreadwide Happy Ending House of Horny probably prostitute themselves less.
Latter, once again, my “old man wakes up just past midnight” sense had me with head phones listening to yet another Mike Malloy hate Hillary rant. Despite some disagreements Mike’s very entertaining, OK? While his focus was more on Hillary, less on how bad the media was behaving, mine was more the latter.
Really, “How would your presidency (insert candidate’s name here) not be a third term for Obama,” is a real question? How would that be “bad,” Mr. “Where the %$#@ Did You Get These Idiotic Questions From?” When is any presidency an exact repeat of the previous presidency? Even if possible… how would that, necessarily, be assumed to be a “bad” thing by everyone out there, as the question seems to assume? One would have to assume no president was ever reelected if that question has a micro gram of reality to it.
How many actual issues did they cover, or was it all mostly just arguments about framing? How artificial is that?
Word: VERY.
The intent, I suspect, was to turn the Dem “debate” more Republican, as in various Trump-ian versions of, “You’re a stupid head.”
There were at least two high points I caught replayed on the Malloy show, like when Hillary in a reversal of the old Don McClean song stole the ball. In the McClean song, American Pie, the good guys didn’t steal the ball. In this case they did: like when a mod framed a question using the tiresome Republican talking point that assumes only Dems want to interfer in the lives of others. Hillary turned it on its head showing how the right has that goal as they accuse Dems of it. Bernie was passed the ball which he also handled well, running down the field… I was happy to hear it happened once again with the E-mail nonsense.
Maybe there was more substance than our, “Screw this, we’re going to bed,” tude provided?
We need more of this snatch the ball away from mods with an agenda tactic. Candidates, especially on the left, must realize the media is their true opponent during these Roman game-like events. The media and their guns for hire are like Caligula who perpetually tries to get the crowd to go along with his every thumb down. If you’ve seen the scene in Gladiator, a movie based, in part, on Caligula’s horrific reign, there’s a scene where thumbs up is only given: very reluctantly, when the crowd’s collective approval of the gladiator’s bravery forces his, well, thumb upward. For now we still have that power, but given the blood thirst in the masses it will take cooperation, and mutual respect among the candidates to get the best of media… something the MSM is trying discourage.
Bernie and Hillary working in tandem against moderators with an obvious agenda was exactly what it took. A stirring moment in the midst of what, to us, seemed a dung heap of attempts to keep what some dared call a ‘debate” in playground bully territory. All with the Trump-ian intent of turning “debate” into…
“You’re a poopy head.”
“No, you’re a poopy head.”
But were we to expect? When previously Bernie couldn’t get attention even if he set off a nuke? When Hillary’s “attention” amounts to variations on, “You had the same kind of server as many Sec of States have had, you probably didn’t set it up youself, and it was more secure than our electronic voting machines, but we’re going to use it against you anyway.”
As an aside: anyone else notice when the scandal machine starts rolling no question will ever be adequately, or completely, answered according to those in the media who obviously enjoy pushing faux scandals? Or when someone like Bernie changes his opinion, or alters his voting pattern, that absolutely has to be a lack of character, not proof of one’s character where someone learns from their mistakes, matures as a human being and as a public servant?
Oh, I’m sorry, does that spoil your he said, she said, WWE fight- based framing, Mr. and Ms. MSM? Gee, golly, willikers, I am SO sorry.
No, I’m NOT.
Each and everyone of you reading this rant probably heard more than we did. We got out early. We simply had had enough. Hope you can prove me wrong. But what we heard was pretty much a total waste of time, artificial and sleazily slick.
Prove me wrong.
Please.
Prove me wrong.
Otherwise: not a debate. No way in hell.
-30-
Inspection is a column that has been written by Ken Carman for over 30 years. Inspection is dedicated to looking at odd angles, under all the rocks and into the unseen cracks and crevasses that constitute the issues and philosophical constructs of our day: places few think, or even dare, to venture.
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Ken Carman and Cartenual Productions
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