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Clinton, Obama Debate, Schmebate

April 17th, 2008
By DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Assistant Editor, TMV Columnist

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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.



This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 1:36 am and is filed under Satire, Newsweek Blogitics, MSM, TV News, 2008 Elections, Talk Radio, Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 4 Comments

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    Okay Clarissa, I agree totally... let the common (wo)man ask the questions......but I would like to hear from you what this type of election media circus is really all about. It seemed to be loaded with bias, focused on character assassinations with toothpicks, but why? Why do the major networks put this bull____ up there, for mass consumption. I can only assume they think we are asleep. As it has been revealed elsewhere, each of the questioners had their built-in biases.
    Some might say the networks are too powerful, corporate backed and with their own agenda, so they try to force feed the public their choice, or at least their choice of two candidates. I don't hear you talk much about the "creeping fascism" the seething combination of religion, patriotism, and government by corporations that appears to be our current status quo...... say something......say it.....
    • ^
    • v
    my dear s\Spirasol, has anyone ever told you that you are i a passionate soul? You care very deeply about so many things; A good quality that many of our other commenters have too

    Your question is like a tiny atom... smasher. lol. The answers are encyclopedic. Spirasol, people can only report as deeply as they can see themselves, as widely as they themselves live. Perception and celebrity in the same person do not always arrive together... in part because perception cannot necessarily move at news cycle speed, but also because good perceptions have their own maturation rates.

    Being a thinker and a writer is often different than being a 'personality'' who writes or tells the 'news.'

    For me personally as a journalist, I mourn the loss of hard copy newspaper investigative reporters and teams. The Boston Globe for instance did a superb job reporting on the sex abuse horrors in the Boston Archdiose, spending hours, day and night, weekends, for months and years on end... to keep the story alive.

    We have few brave and stalwart souls like that. Fewer and fewer. Most of the gallant old men of media have passed or been replaced: murrow, kronkite, even bob Scheiffer is on the sidelines. Bill Buckley is dead. Studs Terkel is give no air time. Harold Bloom is silent. Paglia posts now and then. Kearns-Goodwin is allowed to say two minute's worth here and there. Molly Ivans would be kicking everyone's a__ as you know.

    I continue to critique the media here, and I do note small defensive movements from some on cable when I and other bloggers chide and point out the huge shortfalls... such as occured after this and other posts across the blogesphere went up.

    The networks may be asleep, but the truth spirasol is that you are seeing the equiv of cloned news. All the more important for all of us to continue posting ORIGINAL rather than derivative WORK, and the truths as we see them... we have a boon: we are not constrained by advertisers nor editors who keep us to 7 or 12 column inches. We have a bad handicap; we are low pay/no pay and most all of us have day jobs so we can keep writing.

    I often have the image jump before me that I am broadcasting from the underground... moving in the night from locale to locale in order to keep broadcasting. We all are trying as hard as we can to continue, I surely am, Spirasol. If you are inclined, prayers are always appreciated by me.

    with kindest regards,
    dr.e
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    • v
    Thank you for this eloquent post. While these "debates" have long ceased to be anything resembling a true debate, this last one was an embarrassment, and an insult to both candidates in my view. This wasn't any more illuminating for me than if the hosts had set Obama up at a carnival dunk tank to see how often they could drop him into the drink. For the folks who thought the questions were just ever-so-important -- well water seeks its own level, I suppose. (Although I'm not so sure that fielding questions from Joe or Jane Average would necessarily be an improvement. One woman was selected to ask a question; a reporter revealed that her background is one of economic and health struggles, which would seem to make a number of issues relevant to her -- yet she chose to ask about that silly flag pin.

    Personally, I was really looking forward to hearing Obama expand on some comments he made last week about how he would follow up with investigating potential criminal activity by this administration, once he was in office. I would have been interested in Clinton's response to that as well (and of course, a number of other topics. The excuse that the two candidates are so close on policy issues that there is nothing new to explore there is simply bogus and lazy.)

    I miss Molly Ivins too.
    • ^
    • v
    aw, thank you for missing Molly too. She was truly one of a kind. I miss her too, Leebot.

    >>>>Obama expand on some comments he made last week about how he would follow up with investigating potential criminal activity by this administration>>>>>>>

    that would have been compelling for certain.

    Leebot, the audience members are not allowed to ask the questions they wish; the woman you saw was tightly scripted, like the absurd question to Hillary about diamonds or pearls... that questioner was livid that she was at the last minute, pressed into asking such an inane thing.

    I have a lot of faith in us'ns, the common folk. The behind the scenes manipulation on television live, or recorded (via edits) deadens any spontaneity: viz, spirit, meaning, depth.

    I still hold hope, esp seeing persons like yourself and other commenters I read, making intelligent and insightful remarks.

    thank you for adding not just opinion, but also as I see in a good many comments more recently, a straight-arrow longing for depth

    I think we have to keep pressing for it. And striving to enact depth ourselves, also.
    with kindest regards,
    dr.e
 
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