The Most Important Thing In The World Is Happening Tonight
At least it will be the most important thing in the world until next week’s most important thing in the world. Personally, I like Matt Taibbi’s idea…
The campaign should start and finish in six weeks, and there should be free TV access to both candidates. And it should be illegal to publish poll numbers. This isn’t as crazy as it sounds – they actually had such a law in Russia while I lived there, and people were much happier. (Well, they were still miserable, because they were Russian, but at least they weren’t stressing about poll numbers.) Think about it: Banning poll numbers would force the media to actually cover the issues. As it stands now, the horse race is the entire story – I can think of a couple of cable networks that would have to go completely dark tomorrow, as in Dan-Rather-Dead-Fucking-Air dark, if they had to come up with even 10 seconds of news content that wasn’t centered on who was winning. That’s the dirtiest secret we in the media have kept from you over the years: Most of us suck so badly at our jobs, and are so uninterested in delving into any polysyllabic subject, that we would literally have to put down our shovels and go home if we didn’t have poll numbers we can use to terrify our audiences. Can you imagine if your favorite news network had to do stories like, “What is the Overseas Private Investment Corporation up to, and what do each of the candidates think about it?” That would be like asking Nineties-era baseball players to take the field without popping greenies – what, you mean play the game sober? Half the on-air talent would have to resign, or do ad work hawking reverse mortgages. [emphasis mine]
I’m all for shortening the campaign season. The Brits do this in 6 weeks and I wouldn’t mind if we made our limits 6 months — we are a bigger country. Free TV, eliminate SuperPACs and a Constitutional Amendment that does away with the Electoral College would be just the ticket as far as I’m concerned.
ALSO — I’ve noticed that now the place where you inject any discussion of policy into this business is via the factchecking after the fact. It is the factchecking where I think that people even hear about policy for the first time.
Would Libertarians and Naderites tell you differently or just see those two choices differently than Dems and Repubs?
Pundits are worthless.
Matt Taibbi is not a pundit, he’s a reporter.
Libertarians and Naderites can only succeed by lumping Ds and Rs together, but when push comes to shove the majority of Libertarians are Republican (other than pot smoking 😉 ) and Naderites are Democrats who want a pony.
Im thinking the pre-spun outcome of the debate tonight will be that Obama “wins” but OH NO! HE GETS NO BOUNCE!!!! It will only keep the race tight and set up the last one. Im also pretty interested in the timing of Sec Clinton falling on her sword over Libya…. could it be she sacrificed ehr political future to try and save Obama’s second term? Im really beginning to understand people who take no interest in politics.
Ben, read up on what’s coming out about Libya from people who were actually there.
pandora, you and i both know there is a wide gulf of difference between what is ACTUALLY happening and what the news says is happening, what people believe is happening, what the liars says is happening and what people remember having happened.
The fact that Romney is still enjoying the benefits of lying his ass off 2 weeks ago just proves to me that way more than 47% of Americans dont give a crap about facts. They want the Show.
The media isnt at all interested in talking to people who were there…. they wouldn’t be able to control the narrative that way.
Obama Logic, or why President Obama will lose the debate tonight.
On January 2nd, if nothing changes, defense cuts will cost about 1 million defense contractor employee jobs. Now, guess what, because of current laws, if defense contractors know they are going to have to cut back employees, then they have to give 60 days notice. Now, guess what, that means on November 2nd, 4 days before the election, defense contractors will be handing out 1 million pink slips. Guess what, President Obama decided that was not good for his re-election chances, so he told the defense contractors they did not have to abide by the 60 day rule. But, guess what, they did not buy it, they think there could be potentially thousands of lawsuits, because they did not give the 60 days notice, but guess what, Obama still can’t have a million job layoffs 4 days before election, so he decided the U.S. taxpayers are coming to the rescue. Now President Obama has notified all such defense contractors that any and all suits and legal fees they have to pay for, that the federal governemt will pick up the tab, guess what, as long as they don’t lay them off with the 60 days notice. Guess what, every attorney in the United States is going to be lining up to represent these poor layed off victims, and Uncle Sam, (or the U.S. taxpayers) are going to foot the bill. It’s called “tax dollars for votes”, compliments of Barack Obama, your tax dollars at work.
Or Republicans could have voted against the defense cuts, if they opposed them so strongly.
Here’s a less hysterical version:
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/10/at-white-house-request-lockheed-martin-drops-plan-to-issue-layoff-notices/
Guess what, every attorney in the United States is going to be lining up to represent these poor layed off victims,
You could also make pretend that these victims were teachers and do your usual jig when they get laid off. The Government doesn’t create any jobs, you know.