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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Thursday, October 02, 2008

Debate Non-Coverage

Now Playing: The VP Debate, natch...

I'm not going to do play-by-play commentary on this debate folks. I'm not a journalist, and I'm not going to sit here and pretend I'm a journalist. Granted, a ham sandwich could do a better job than 90% of the "journalists" out there today - hence the explosive popularity of the New Media and the precipitous nosedive in viewership and readership of "mainstream" media.

I don't type that fast, so just some general observations, as they come up...

#1: Why is there a live audience? Is this "Jeopardy?" Given the Katie Couric interview and the blatant conflict of interest in the "moderater" of this debate I suppose you could say that it is, copyright infringement notwithstanding. Yet I have that question: Why? So far they're fairly well-behaved, but... I'm watching this to find out what these two - that's: two - people think about this and that vis-à-vis the American political scene, not what a random audience of irrelevant outbursts thinks.

- Both candidates have utterly, infuriatingly, remained floating entirely on the populist surface of the current economic debacle. The downside goes mostly to Palin, because (shock of all shocks,) she is the Republican candidate. And there she stands, pointing the fraudulent, populist finger at "the greed of Wall Street," and not a peep about the government-sponsored regulatory swamp that is the primary cause of what we're looking at in headlines today. No mouth on that stage has yet formed the words "Fannie Mae" or "Freddie Mac." (!) Tell me: What is wrong with this picture?

- On "climate change," a.k.a. "weather," Biden is spewing 100% faith in the eco-fascist line that EvilGreedyHumanity is the cause of... weather, and that EvilGreedyHumanity must therefore be punished. By government.

- Our "moderator" has just tossed Biden a helpful hint in his narrative with "Clean coal, clean coal." Nice.

- "Ahahahahahaha..." Are we watching a rerun of "The Munsters?" Hmmm... Why do we have a live audien... Oh forget it.

- Ohhh, serendipity! Despite the oddly selective camera POV changes that we're seeing - what union do they serve? - just as Palin is hammering Obama on his naïve pledge to meet face-to-face with international mass murderers, dictators and terrorists, there's another one of those split-screen things (that only show up when Palin is speaking, oddly,) and Biden, visibly knocked off balance, starts a neck-scratch that looks for all the world like someone trying to loosen his collar under the heat. As well it should. 8^D Bravo, Palin!

- One difference I'm seeing here - and I will acknowledge a bias in favor of Palin - is demonstrably obvious: Biden has given a series of what are obviously rehearsed mini-speeches, while Palin has been doing mostly extemporaneous responses off of rehearsed notes. Advantage: Palin.

- She hit it out of the park on education, and our "impartial moderator" appropriated her line by way of dilution... arrggh.

- My scorecard thus far says that, on the surface, these are two appealing candidates. Biden is someone I've always considered oddly likeable, in the manner of a circus clown - he's prone to some of the most spectacular verbal gaffes in American politics (so far absent in this debate) - unfortunately his ideology is entirely antithetical to individual liberty. Palin's palpable, Reaganesque self-confidence and command of both herself and facts and issues is nearly overwhelming. Just now she's touching upon Reagan's "Shining city on a hill" and it's got me ready to stand up and do the wave... Damn! Errrmmm... can we change the GOP ticket to "Palin/McCain?" Just wondering...

- Biden: "They're lookin' for help. They're lookin' for help." Hmmm, that reminds me of a great lady's simple statement: "Life is not one huge hospital."

- Oh, he's off again on another speech, this time the "McCain Is Not A Maverick" speech. Note to Biden: If you're gonna deliver a memorized speech in the context of a debate, you've got to try to keep it from sounding like... a rehearsed speech.

Number one is that you don't launch into it within 200 milliseconds of the "moderator's" prompt, as if we're supposed to believe a polished flourish of immaculate prose just sprung forth unbidden (un-Biden?) from a relatively mundane question. And you don't blurt it out in a machine gun staccato for two solid minutes. Geez.

- Closing arguments... Fluff, mostly, but Biden, apparently victim to some bizarre temporal shift, is going off on the Bush Administration. Closing arguments are speechlike by definition, but Biden is again sounding a little...too rehearsed. "Selfishly may God protect our troops." Huh?

- Ok, what's with Palin's lapel mic volume being jacked up to clipping level, pre and post-debate? 'Guess the Democrat-Socialist technical staff at this debate (say it isn't so!) are hoping for a usable gaffe. Errmm, why are these people so petrified by Palin?

My unvarnished appraisal of "Who won?":

More than any recent debate I've experienced, and (unfortunately) there have been one hell of a lot of them, this one reminds me of a PKA or WBA title bout. In a nutshell:

Nobody was knocked out, but one contender unquestionably dominated the ring: Palin.

To give Biden his due, he fought well and didn't make any major mistakes. But his younger, more articulate and down-to-Earth opponent danced rings around him, despite her often infuriating lapses in philosophical grounding.

As that MSM dweeb ('forget his name but I remember it was weird,) said earlier today: "This election is over."

But only if McCain/Palin don't make any serious mistakes.

.

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