Charlie Brooker: CNN's voter approval graph turned the presidential debate into a computer game.

[arenean]

I love Charlie Brooker's articles in The Guardian. He's rude, misanthropic, and hilarious.
Here's todays.....

CNN's voter approval graph turned the presidential debate into a computer game. Where can I get one?

<snip....>

Rather than shoving electrodes into said voters' brains, so they looked like miserable cats in an anti-vivisection poster, CNN had taken the humane route and given them some sort of approval-rating widget. So if you were holding one, and Obama said something you didn't like, you turned the dial down, and if McCain said something you did like, you turned it up. And vice versa. There was one line for women and another for men, so you could see how the different sexes had different reactions. Sadly, that was the full extent of demographic separation. They could've broken it down a little further. It would've been fascinating to see how, say, overweight ginger-haired postmen felt about the possibility of a new free trade agreement with Colombia, but the lazy bastards at CNN couldn't be arsed to tell us.

<snip>

Despite the visual distractions, a few words and noises did register in my brain. Obama's voice is so soothing, I kept thinking he was about to start advertising coffee. "I want to say to the American people: this is the finest, mellowest blend your money can buy." McCain, meanwhile, was narrating a children's story about Joe the Plumber. Maybe it's a back-up plan: if he doesn't win the presidency, he's going to launch a stop-motion animation series on Nickelodeon. There's probably a warehouse full of Joe the Plumber action figures out there somewhere in the Arizona desert just waiting for the say-so.

I kept waiting for Obama to counter McCain's talk of Joe the Plumber by bringing up Boris the Spider or Dennis the Menace or something, but no. He started addressing Joe too. Before long they were both at it, appealing to Joe straight down the lens, which meant I had to keep looking behind me in case he was standing there, fixing a pipe.

<snip>

Full article here.....

CNN's voter approval graph turned the presidential debate into a computer game. Where can I get one?