Last night's "Dustup in the Desert" in Nevada showed off a strange side of "we the people." Apparently audience members of the Democratic debate thought they were at a WWF cage match event, as they whistled and booed at candidates' statements. Seemingly CNN ringmasters Wolf Blitzer and John Roberts, not unlike a professional wrestling referees, were oblivious to this.
Clearly it was important to all the candidates to perform well, but to a front-runner, "well" is not good enough. The word to HRC organizers was probably to turn out the troops. And turn out they did. This time instead of planted questions, there seemed to be a potted (if not "planted") audience.
Sour grapes you say? I'll confess that the boos did seem focused on the two-closest-to-Hillary-in-the-polls candidates--John Edwards and Barack Obama. But you tell me, what other debate's decorum was like this?
And what about the final question of the evening? Do you prefer pearls or diamonds? I don't suppose that Dennis Kucinich even minded being passed over on that one--it was such a meaningless softball (right up there with the boxers or briefs question that WJC was asked by an MTV audience some years back).
Despite the theatrics of the evening, it is up to the rest of us to pay attention to what these candidates actually say and to decide which one we believe will be the best leader to win back the White house in November 2008.
No comments:
Post a Comment