ABC News Presidential Debate Scores an 'F'

Seriously, what has become of the cesspool of our political system, and even more, the Mainstream media's role in it? This entire process has become like an embarrassing slap in the face of this nation...Our nation is struggling to survive--The cost of living is outpacing most peoples measely paychecks (if they're lucky enough to have a job anymore), there are millions of people homeless with more millions to come, the cost of food and fuel is detonating like an A-bomb, and we're stuck neck deep in a 12 billion a month nightmare over in Iraq...And THESE are the types of questions this JOKE of a media are asking potential candidates on "behalf" (tongue in cheek) of americans?!? Boy, we've all got so much to look forward to having all these tough questions answered about the state of affairs OUR COUNTRY IS IN, and how things are going to start changing!

Shame on you MSM...

The ABC News-moderated debate between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, April 16, has been universally panned. Most commentators have pointed to ABC's highlighting of gaffes, scandal, and personality in the effort to get the candidates to snipe at each other rather than talk about issues that people care about. Especially disturbing about ABC's farce was the racist character of the questions George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson chose to put forward.

For example, one question directed at Barack Obama accusingly asked about his decision to express patriotism in ways other than wearing a US flag pin. Gibson worked hard to turn the question into a real issue. "It comes up again and again when we talk to voters," he insisted.

Obama responded, "I have never said that I don't wear flag pins or refuse to wear flag pins. This is the kind of manufactured issue that our politics has become obsessed with and, once again, distracts us from what should be my job when I'm commander in chief, which is going to be figuring out how we get our troops out of Iraq and how we actually make our economy better for the American people."

Full Story:
www.politicalaffairs.net...

[edit on 17-4-2008 by DimensionalDetective]

You know I gotta say, even though I'm an Obama supporter, this debate was sure filled with alot of junk.

reply to post by DimensionalDetective

I must have missed something in your post. What is racist in asking Obama about the lapel pin controversy? I take it you're referring to the videotaped question from a viewer.

I'm an Obama supporter who thinks that racism is often the overt and/or underlying message in a lot that's said to, and about, him. I also think the flap about the flag pin was ridiculous. But I don't see racism there, just stupidity.

reply to post by Sestias


Well, I think the writer (not me) is inferring that they were picking on Obama about that, while showing that Hillary was wearing one simultaniously, and that they were doing a lot more nit-picking on him...Personally, the race card is not the issue here for me---It's the fact that they are not even asking questions that have to do with taking our country to a better place than the mess it's currently in, and instead focusing on personal attacks and 'character assininations'...

It's all low-brow, insult-our-intelligence, non-relevance to what we need so desperately as a nation stuff...The media is playing us all for as big of dummies as our gov does...

It's a total 3 ring circus. The joke is on us all, sitting back and watching this embarrassment...

Another write-up on this sham of an 'election debate'...The one positive thing that did come out of this circus was that the crowd actually started BOOing the moderators for their ridiculous behavior and insults to the populace...


ABC Decides Top Issues Facing America are Flag Pins and 60's Radicals

In perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years, ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the health care and mortgage crises, the overall state of the economy and dozens of other pressing issues had to wait for their few moments in the sun as Obama was pressed to explain his recent "bitter" gaffe and relationship with Rev. Wright (seemingly a dead issue) and not wearing a flag pin while Clinton had to answer again for her Bosnia trip exaggerations.

Then it was back to Obama to defend his slim association with a former '60s radical -- a question that came out of rightwing talk radio and Sean Hannity on TV, but delivered by former Bill Clinton aide Stephanopolous. This approach led to a claim that Clinton's husband pardoned two other '60s radicals. And so on.

The below comment sums this embarrassment and waste of america's time perfectly...

Walter Shapiro, the former USA Today political writer, declared in Salon, "Broadcast to a prime-time network audience on ABC and devoid of a single policy question during its opening 50 minutes, the debate easily could have convinced the uninitiated that American politics has all the substance of a Beavis and Butt-Head marathon."

LOL!!

Full Story:
alternet.org...

It truly was a most terrible debate. All they talked about was the garbage mudslinging. That's it.

I think they spent a few questions here and there talking about policy, but that was pretty rare. The questions were terrible.

I think his relationship with the notable reverened is very appropriate questioning. He's been a member of the guy's congregation for decades and he claims this is all news to him. That's just ridiculous. He's either lying about being a church going Christian or he's lying about knowing the reverend's opinions. Either way, he's a liar. I'll agree that the rest was junk, though.

If Obama can't stand up to his allies in the drive-by media how is he going to stand up to terrorists?

Wait, nevermind, he won't stand up to them either.......

reply to post by RRconservative


*cough*rhetoric*cough*

That was one of THE WORST debates that I've ever seen!

It was soooo bad that MoveOn.org has started a petion against against ABC News, and if they get 100,000 signatures, they will run TV ads admonishing ABC for THAT debate!

Maybe a little bad P.R. might stop this sort of thing in the future.

If not, at least they'll know how pepole feel about this sort of "debate".

[EDIT] for the following:

Want to REALLY hear some negative feedback about this debate, just go here, to this ABC NEWS webpage, as of this posting, there are 19948 Comments so far!

At least ABC News IS finding out when it has stepped over the line according to its viewers!

[edit on 18/4/08 by Keyhole]

reply to post by Keyhole


That's great stuff keyhole! I signed the petition. I am so fed up with the media collusion with the special interest groups running (and ruining) this country.

Check out that ABC comment section-Posts are DISAPPEARING! LOL!

They are erasing peoples feedback! AAAAHAHAHA

BWWAAAAHAHAHA...Jon Stewart had a go at these morons as well...


www.crooksandliars.com...

Extremely funny parady, although the issue itself is disgusting...Both of those idiots should be fired, and ABC should be permanently banned from ever hosting another debate again.

Originally posted by DimensionalDetective

Check out that ABC comment section-Posts are DISAPPEARING! LOL!

They are erasing peoples feedback! AAAAHAHAHA

It surely appears like they are!

I actually copy and pasted that part from the website, "19948 Comments".

And now it's DOWN to 19912 Comments!
(Again, I copied and pasted the number of comments)

Have to check back later and see if the number of comments drop further!

[EDIT] for update:

By the time I got done posting this post, I checked back again and it was down to 19910 Comments !

Gotta love the HONESTY in our media!

Another UPDATE, (22 minutes after this post was submitted!)

Now down to 19882 Comments!



[edit on 18/4/08 by Keyhole]

LMAO!!! What a crooked bunch of bastards! They have a comment section for feedback, and they're 'paring' it to silence folks! Damage control 101!

I didn't watch the debate but I did hear some of the sound bites and highlights and it sure seemed like no one asked any serious questions especially those relating to illegal immigration.

It was also very obvious there were so many easy pitches/questions thrown at Obama.

Man what a show we are watching here.
Seems like the media are not allowed to not ruffle any prima-Obama-donna feathers, quite the contrast to what we see with Bush.

Why is that?

reply to post by Alxandro


Actually, it goes WAY beyond that...This whole electoral process COVERAGE has been the biggest sham ever perpetuated upon the american public! These corporate media goons have totally selectively covered the folks that were pre-approved by their corporate masters. What happened to Ron Paul, and even Dennis Kucinich shows how the 'corpomedia' is as rigged and dirty as our entire political system.

This year was the most blatantly transparent example I have ever seen of it though...This entire electoral process and media coverage of it is a huge slap in americas face.

Man, what can I say about this debate? The US is in a war we shouldn't be in with thousands of Americans dead, tens of thousands wounded, who knows how many innocent Iraqis dead and trillions of dollars spent. Recession is here, depression a real possibility. Americans are losing their homes by the millions with the peak of foreclosures not expected until the 3rd quarter at best. The dollar is at it's lowest point against other currencies in decades. Unemployment is on the rise with most of the "new jobs" Bush claims he created are in the service industry such as fast foods, etc. The middle class is shrinking and I don't mean by joining the ranks of the rich. Americans have less in savings since the Great Depression. The US has the biggest deficit in history and we're spending $5000 per second in the Iraq war. Bush is giving the economy a stupid "stimulis" telling us to buy US manufactured goods. Please tell me what is still produced here? Gas is heading towards $4 a gallon, diesel already there. Food is an average of 40% higher than just a year ago. Favorable views of the US abroad is at it's lowest in years even though the majority of the world was with us after 9/11. I coulld go on, but what's the point?
Bush is obviously the worst president ever with the possible exception of Hoover. What's scary is that McCain is essentially 4 more years of Bush and he has the support he does. So here we are- ABC hosting a debate with the Democratic candidates in an election that potentially is the most important in our history. And it's about lapel pins, sniper lies, minor associations with controversial figures, misspoken opinions- in short- BS. Seemed to be lopsided as well with the most pointed attacks on Obama. What the h**l is wrong with ABC? Getting their talking points from Faux News? My God people! This country is in real trouble and we're teetering on the edge of an abyss! And these 2 jokes calling themselves "reporters" pull this crap! Shame on ABC. What a bunch of tools.

Hands off Obama!

No hard questions.

Don't call him by his middle name. (Hussein) shhhhhh!

Don't you dare make the mistake of calling him Osama. (You can only do that if you are Ted Kennedy.)

Don't insinuate that just because he belonged to a certain church for 20 years that he had any idea what his pastor was preaching.

Don't insinuate that just because he was close friends with a domestic terrorist that he wouldn't have any pity on them.

If a Presidential candidate can't, or refuses to answer the hard questions while running for office, what is he going to do as President?

reply to post by RRconservative


Could he do any worse than Bush?

"I'm the President and I don't need to answer to Congress"

or his cabinet?

"We won't comment until it's under investigation"

"It's currently under investigation so we can't comment"

"Look, it was investigated already, what do you want from us?"

or my favorite:

"We don't condone torture. We had no idea they were waterboarding, we weren't there for those decisions."

"Yeah, we signed off on waterboarding... so what?"

Shall I go on?

What questions has Obama not answered? In fact, he spent the first 45 minutes of the last debate answering stupid questions like that.

Checked back in on the ABC News debate comment webpage to see if the number of comments had dropped anymore.

My first visit there was 19948 Comments.

Today the comments only numbered 19676 Comments!

I guess when the truth hurts, you just need to get rid of it!

[edit on 20/4/08 by Keyhole]