This was a debate?
No. It was double jeopardy for both the candidates: the prosecution of an individual twice for the same offense.
Take that back. It was umpteenth jeopardy.
If most people were forced to watch the OJ trial all over again, they would consider it capital punishment.
I sense strongly, that viewers were turning away from watching the kangaroo court, I mean, the debate being held tonight with candidates as defendants, I mean, opponents.
Again.
Perhaps the issue is who asks the questions.
Most voters I know, look like, act like, think like no one who has been an inquisitor, I mean, questioner at the debates… any of them… from any side.
Frankly, I’d rather see a wide-mouth bass fisherman and a woman who cleans houses for a living, asking the questions.
I’d rather have a meat cutter and a rancher and a truck farmer ask the questions.
I’d rather have immigrants without papers ask the questions,
or drug addicts trying to get another chance to go clean,
or the married couple who sell coffee from the side of their panel truck in the parking lot of the light rail station every morning,
or overland truckers who are going under from the cost of fuel,
and kids who cant get into ‘good’ colleges for they haven’t the money,
or angelic social workers worked beyond human reason with overload cases
and the family that just lost their home and are living in a shelter, and have college degrees,
and gun owners who are shy and smart and thoughtful
and adults who cannot read or write
and people who are paying 30% interest on their credit cards and have no reprieve from the banks,
and people who depend on the water to grow their crops
and men and women who have American flags in the place of honor on the mantle when they’d much rather have their son back,
and people who believe everything has a soul.
I like most of the radio and TV pundits, the educated Irish boys, and the English guys, the Jewish boys and Black guys and German-Americans, the Latinos, and Asian Americans, and all the rest.
But they don’t live where and as most other people in the USA live.
Their questions are often too book-title-like, too slogan-ish, too predictable. Quite a few seem overly aware they are being watched/ televised, and some appear pointedly trying too hard to sound like whatever their fantasy is of being ‘hard-hitting.’
Hard-hitting tonight? Yes, as hitting a lot of grounders really really hard. Score: zero
Hard hitting as in fresh and insightful, revealing? No.
No doubt some media will now dawdle on with further “aummmm, shame on you stories’ about various.
Some more prescient might investigate more deeply each candidate’s understanding of how the United States is SUPPOSED to go to war IF the USA is, God forbid ever again, the direct recipient of an attack. There appeared to be an emotional idea about going to war if need be with /regarding Iran. As we have already seen, grievously so, the decision is not supposed to be made emotionally only.
So, for tonight, as per useful, startling, deep questions being asked of the candidates, there was barely an introit to the core concerns. Hopefully, the next time– if there is a next time– the questions will be more like making love with all you’ve got: wilder, deeper, longer, more responsively…
My father, who had a second grade education and could barely speak English, used to say: Ve dont care vat de hell der best answers are if de qvestions are not de right qvestions.