The Nation: America's Idiotic Political Debates

[babylonsister]

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070521/von_hoffman

America's Idiotic Political Debates

Nicholas von Hoffman



Presidential debates get more intolerable with each passing quadrennium. A new low was reached Thursday when minder/moderator Chris Matthews, asked the ten aspirants to the Republican Presidential nomination to raise their hands if they did not believe in evolution. Three of the ten not very prepossessing men stuck their hands up in the approved kindergarten style.

In real kindergartens, as opposed to the political debate variety, the children are encouraged to interact with each other, but the candidates taking part in this one were admonished to speak only to the teacher. The ninety-minute affair bore a resemblance to a pop quiz, although they are not usually given to pre-schoolers.

The night previous to the Republican do, the French had a political debate between presidential candidates. What a contrast. The debate, every minute of which was televised, lasted two and a hours and was conducted without the doubtful ministrations of some media news personality asking questions. Back and forth the two French candidates went like grown-ups disputing. The 1858 debates between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas on the question of slavery and the future of the union went on for hours.

What passes for a political debates in the United States today is little more than dueling sound bites. The Republican candidates were restricted to sixty-second answers to the questions put to them. Such time limitations are the rule in American debating and give rise to the suspicion that these politicians are unable to discuss a topic at a greater length than 100 words. After that they apparently run out of material. They are programmed for short bursts and little more.

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If you go back to the time of H. L. Mencken or Mark Twain the educated classes also complained that American politicians were divided into two classes, vapid windbags and screeching baboons. Yet the country prospered.

If things are worse today it is because the windbags are gone. Most of today's pols are not able to deliver a sustain utterance in their own words of five minutes' duration. That leaves us with baboons emitting their loud short cries when the TV ringmaster tells them it's their turn. And still the Republic endures.

[Lobster Martini]

1. Pardon me.. the frustration is overwhelming

The evolution question had no purpose in a presidential debate other than to give some dim 40 watt bulbs a chance to prove that the lights have finally gone out. Why not ask what killed the dinosaurs? That has as much to do with the presidency as evolution.

[Jim__]

2. If we had debates between our candidates like the French debate ...

... I wonder if bush could ever have gotten elected. For that matter, I wonder if Reagan could ever have gotten elected. Our political system favors small minded politicians who can parrot what they've been told.

[PATRICK]

3. Debates in history

Hard to think of a radio debate in the days of FDR? Ever notice the quick rise and fall of TV debates after the first one between JFK and Nixon when a visual image gap was the only memorable result in the minds of most Americans who even remember there was one. It became an exercise of noble favor for the President to debate a challenger. The debate over the debates used to be the biggest pre-game show as challenger and incumbent alike jockeyed for the JFK advantage and started the protectionism format that has led to their ultimate degradation. The League of Women Voters try to deal with the simplicity of two people disputing with each other like empty gun UN troops in a hot war zone.

Candidates who could debate very well, like ours, have settled for the trap rather than going back and negotiating the media talking idiots out, putting real, debate back in. They instead increase the number as if they are what they are: free TV spots for personal ads. Some candidates would be better off putting a cardboard image on stage with a tape recorder of set responses.

When did the nation stop the real debates? When stump politics declined and electronic media rose? When did their electronic revival, urged on of course by eloquent and charismatic smart pols, collapse into itself? I think it was in not allowing some bi-partisan group like the LWV(about as good as you can get)
to set the rules permanently and choosing to treat it merely as a strategic prop. Maybe it is the reductionist stupidity that changes it into a Madison Avenue boxing match where the KO gaffe or sound bite can render all the other points meaningless.

As with all decadence, no bland medium goes on forever. It rots further so that criminally idiotic TV personalities get to humiliate everyone, including the public. Both parties, even the GOP that has media favoritism falls into the morass. As usual pols make the best of it thinking of it more like a game of Survivor than a fair presentation to an informed electorate.