Does Iraq need more debate? - An interesting editorial about the need for more debates.

[Mass]

Every now and then, my husband and I argue about the fact that we need more real debates about issues. He would like to see a few politicians like Kerry, Gore, Hagel, and a few others start a tour to have a real debate about real issues. While I find the idea attractive in his own right, something makes me doubt it could actually happen in a meaningful manner.

Today, there was this editorial in the LATimes, that makes the point we do not need more debates per se. We need a change in the way these debates are led and reported.

Any thought about the article.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oekaplan19dec19,0,6412562.story?coll=la-home-commentary

Does Iraq need more debate?
We've had plenty of shouting matches on the war; what we need are better leaders and more capable media.
By Martin Kaplan, MARTIN KAPLAN is associate dean of the USC Annenberg School, where he directs the Norman Lear Center (learcenter.org).
December 19, 2006

EVERYONE SAYS WE need a national debate on Iraq. Left, right, politicos, pundits, editorial writers, academics. If ever there was a universally held position, it's the belief that holding a national debate on Iraq is just the thing for what ails us in the Middle East. d clarifying national debate.

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Perhaps it's because the mainstream media are too timid to declare the difference between right and wrong. Imagine if journalism consisted of more than a collage of conflicting talking points. Imagine the difference it would make if more brand-name reporters broke from the bizarre straitjacket of "balance," which equates fairness with putting all disputants on equal epistemological footing, no matter how deceitful or moronic they may be.

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Maybe we don't need a national debate. National debates nicely fulfill the circus part of the bread-and-circuses formula of modern public life. Like psychoanalysis, national debates are basically interminable. And in our postmodern era, they do a nice job substituting for the hard work of actually figuring out what's true and what's good.