The Objective Eye

"Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demand for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen."
- Ayn Rand, "America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business" (1961)

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Sunday, January 06, 2008

The First Presidential Debate Finally Airs - Bravo FoxNews!

Now Playing: Woogie the Weasel by Freeway Philharmonic, from Car Tunes, 1991

~~ Ah, back in the New Year from a self-induced vacation blackout on all things political - even political junkies need the periodic reboot. 'Hope everyone had a happy holiday season. [Note that I said absolutely nothing about "safe" - I'm not your nanny and neither is anyone else, assuming you're past the diaper stage.] ~~

I think congratulations of some sort are in order - with an adjectival mixture of "exasperated" and "relieved" - to Fox News for airing the first Presidential debate of the ‘08 campaign.

That's right, the first Presidential debate of the '08 campaign. No game-show format, no arena crowds of screaming, booing, jeering, applauding, groaning bonehead cheerleaders dragging discourse into the fetid gutter of tabloid journalism. Just Presidential candidates seated before a moderator, discussing issues. Imagine that.

Why we've had to wait the better part of a year through the inane game shows before getting a real discussion - you know, as if hearing what the candidates have to say were important or something - will likely remain a mystery. The vastly-improved format did not prevent the candidates from evasion, of course, nor did it suddenly instill in them better ideas, but for the first time we got to hear them.

The question now is: How do we drum into the collectiv(ist) heads of the rest of America’s news media that this is the kind of format that the debates from here to November 4 need to adopt?

This is a backhanded compliment, to be sure, but a compliment nonetheless. Televised political "debates" in America have been atrocious - nay, scandalous - in their juvenility for years, but thanks are due to Fox News for finally getting it right, and may the idea stick.

More on the debate's content as I digest it in reruns - this is a snapshot impression of format based on having caught the last 1/3 of it.
 

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