That weird Wednesday debate: Katie Couric, anyone?

[proud2BlibKansan]

There are two ways to look at Wednesday night's debate on ABC. One is to say that George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson were atrocious, that they shamed themselves and their network by devoting all that time to red herrings, making McCarthy-esque insinuations about Barack Obama's friendship with former Weathermen radical Bill Ayers, and bringing up that flag pin non-issue.

On the other hand, it's possible that the ABC newsmen simply were asking some of the actual questions that Pennsylvania voters have been asking in the runup to next Tuesday's primary. A little Google, or a few minutes listening to C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" or "60 Minutes," reveals that there are, apparently, a lot of people expressing what seem to be genuine concerns about Obama and the flag pin, Obama and the Muslims, and other matters that Obama's core dismisses as nonsense (or as the New York Times inferred, veiled racism).

Is it the job of ABC to elevate the discourse or reflect the discourse? Careful how you answer; it's a slippery slope to Fox News.

I'm not sure it matters either way. In the end, ABC's line of questioning and the relentless message-hammering of the all-but-vanquished Hillary Clinton confirmed that Obama is the putative, all-but-coronated Democratic nominee. It was he, not she, who was kept on the defensive all night long, giving the debate the air of something like a cross between a police interrogation and a corporate job interview.

You can't lay responsibility for that only on the journos. The role of the press is to be adversarial, and ABC certainly was aware that this was a debate of unequals, electorally speaking. I think Gibson and Stephanopoulos decided this was as good a time as any to start treating Obama as the nominee, but since that wasn't (couldn't be) communicated overtly, it had to be inferred from their questioning. Oddly enough, they were aided in this mission by Obama, who once again pulled his punches (admittedly, I'd do the same if I were in his spot); and by Clinton, whose message discipline was less about why she should be president and more about why she is, as she put it, still in this race.

http://blogs.kansascity.com/tvbarn/

[FrenchieCat]

1. Bullshit.......!

The role of the press is not to pursue personal attacks about nothing. "Does your Pastor love America as much as you do?" What kind of a question is that?

No, the problem is exactly the media. That how we got into this fucked up war, remember?

But keep making excuses for them.......you too will understand soon enough.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. I had an interesting email debate with this reporter about 8 months ago

I wrote him to complain about the lack of coverage we got when we were kicked out of the CBS Early Show taping.

He worked very hard at convincing me he was part of that liberal media the right likes to complain about.

[livetohike]

2. Pennsylvanians are worried about the price of gas, putting

food on their table and not having to send their sons and daughters to Iraq because there are no other jobs in their small towns.

That flag pin deal made my blood boil.

[islandmkl]

3. it is all in the question(s)....

people 'on the street' or 'on the phone' don't tend to express much beyond answering the questions they are asked...

kind of as if i only ask you, "Do you think it is unpatriotic to not wear a flag pin in one's lapel?"...

and then i report that all people were talking about is the wearing of a flag pin....

self-fulfilling 'conclusions' are the easy candy for these 'pollsters' and pundits...

[Saturday]

4. Gee, weren't the Obama crew just calling some protesters "cows"

because they were protesting unfair treatment of Hillary on MSNBC? Didn't you laugh at them and show pictures of cows in fields. Interesting how now that the media has asked your candidate a few questions you don't like that you have turned on the media. When they kissed Obama's ass you loved them.

[LSparkle]

6. "A few questions" = half the debate

And as long as they were asking about lapel pins and Rev. Wright, why didn't
they ask her about MARK PENN and the Colombia Free Trade deal?

It's one thing to be less than 100% fair in a pundit show (Countdown, Hardball)
but it's another when it's a DEBATE. Debate moderators are supposed to be that --
moderate, unbiased, questioners, not advocates of particular positions.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. I thought that protest was ridiculous but I didn't call anyone a cow

And it isn't about not liking the questions. It's about wanting RELEVANT questions. Who gives a shit about flag pins?