Debate- Noun: A formal
discussion using skills of reasoned argument with
participants taking opposite sides of a specified question.
Spectacle – Noun: A
public show or exhibition on a grand scale which is mainly
attractive to the eye.
As television ratings for the Republican presidential debates
continue to soar I cannot help but wonder if a Republican party so recently
declared dead has found its way to relevance again. Could it be that the
Republicans finally have such compelling candidates that people cannot help but
tune in to watch them? Or is it that these debates have turned into such a
political version of the WWE that like any good train wreck, the public simply can’t
look away.
Much of the attention paid to these ‘debate presentations’
is of course due to Donald Trump, a man who is difficult not to watch. He is like nothing else recently seen on any
political stage. Add to this the preening, self-important moderators with politically
biased agendas, questions predetermined to set the ‘contestants’ against one
another, media hype akin playoff football, and the resulting spectacle is
something reminiscent of Emerson Lake
and Palmer’s ‘Karn Evil 9’. Welcome
back my friends to the show that never ends.. and oh, did I mention we have
Donald Trump?
I really enjoy watching Donald
Trump handle the media. After years of watching frightened Republicans dance
around the press’s ‘gotcha’ questions The Donald is a real hoot. I must also
admit that I enjoyed watching him repeatedly beat up on Jeb Bush and then take
his political lunch money. It was like being a kid and watching the Three
Stooges again. But it soon wore thin and started to feel ridiculous and ugly.
Moe and Curly were a lot more likeable. And other than realizing that old Jeb had
no business even being on the stage, none of it helped me decide who to vote
for. Soon the Trump supreme with red hair
in Cosmoline will eviscerate Jeb’s meme what a scene what a scene.
The fun all started during the
very first debate when Fox moderator Megyn Kelly asked Donald Trump about his
references to women as fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. She
continued with a rather salacious reference he made concerning a certain Celebrity
Apprentice contestant ‘on her knees’.
Trump responded with a series of twitter rages and other media attacks
that took over the news cycle for the next two weeks. Kelly took a mysterious
unscheduled vacation, and from there we were on our way. In the aftermath of
the first Fox debate Trump got lots of free campaign coverage, Megyn Kelly’s celebrity shot to the moon, and
we the electorate were fed two weeks’ coverage of sex, innuendo and ‘bleeding from wherever’. The celebrity
Cage Match did nothing to help us review the political ideas and opinions put
forth by Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Rand Paul, Ben Carson et al. Seven virgins and a mule keep it cool keep
it cool..
As a conservative I found the
initial group of candidates refreshing. They brought more knowledge of the Constitution
and strength of character to the primaries than has been seen in a very long
time. Not to mention qualities of youth, vigor, and diversity that are usually
attributed to those the other side. I wanted to hear what they had to say, and
I have not enjoyed watching them asked pointedly self-destructive questions or being
pitted against one another as participants in some kind of sleazy political cock
fight.
I did enjoy the candidates’
revolt against moderators John Harwood and Carl
Quintanilla during CNBC
debate. After too many questions
concerning why he was NOT qualified to be President Ted Cruz finally pointed
out to Carl Quintanilla that this was ‘why the American people don’t trust the
media’. The line received much applause. Later Chris Christie after continual
interruptions from John Harwood said ‘John, do you want me to answer or do you want to answer?’ In the second Fox debate Cruz once again
complained that the questions being asked were nothing more than invitations
for the other candidates to attack him. Moderator Chris Wallace responded ‘It is a debate, sir’. Wallace, who in my opinion was born on third
base and thinks he hit a triple, could benefit from reading the definitions
listed at the top of this page. In the end the
narrative of these debates became about the agenda of the moderators, not the
participants, and the electorate was once again denied substantive information.
But the ratings were great.
We've got
thrills and shocks, supersonic fighting cocks... Come Inside Come Inside…
ABC
staged its Republican debate the day before The Super Bowl and the similarities
were not subtle. ABC opened the broadcast with such pomp and hype that I
expected to see roman numerals in event’s title. Then they introduced the
candidates with such fervor that I was waiting to see them come running out
onto the stage with helmets under their arms…And now from the University of
Delaware, weighing in at .136 metric tons, starting wide end Chris Christie...
Christie then runs out of the wings passing pom-pom waving Martha Raddatz while
fireworks shoot across the stage. The story of this debate, however was how confused
the introductions got after Ben Carson missed his que to enter. Some of the
candidates hung out in the wings talking while others took to their podiums
waiting to begin and when the moderators finally got things sorted out they realized
that they totally forgot John Kasich – an omission that I find completely
forgivable. Come inside, the show's about
to start Guaranteed to blow your head apart… You've got to see the show..
The Republican
National Committee (RNC)
allegedly stacked the deck at the CBS Debate by filling the audience with
boisterous pro-establishment voters who vigorously cheered for Bush, Kasich and
Rubio while violently booing Trump and Cruz. Google Trends reported a spike in
web searches for ‘why are people booing’ by confused viewers trying to figure
out what was going on while waiting for rotten tomatoes to start flying onto
the stage. It was another example of an outside agenda – in this case the RNC’s
– over shadowing the substance of what the candidates had to say. Who won the
debate? Certainly not the electorate. The audience was the story of this show
and they got so raucous that they sounded like a crowd at the Roman Colosseum. I thought RNC chairman Reince Priebus would come out of the wings wearing a toga and olive
branches, walk up behind Donald Trump and give him a thumbs down.
Speaking
of Reince Priebus and the RNC,
aren’t they responsible for these debates?
Is it not their job to put forth these candidates in the most positive
light? Should not their highest priority be to help the voting public decide
who is the best Republican candidate for President? Shouldn’t we be able to count on them to
produce substantive debates and not spectacles? Given what we have seen to
date, their answer to adding substance would include hot dog cannons shooting
copies of the Constitution into debate crowds.
Reince
Priebus needs to go. And some serious questions need to be asked of the RNC.
Why are
Republican debates being produced by liberal networks using progressive
moderators to ask questions that are irrelevant to anyone voting in the Republican
primaries? Why are the debates being run by networks at all? Is the Republican National Committee getting
paid to let these networks take over what is ostensibly their product? How much are they getting? Who decided that putting 43 people on a stage
and making them hack at one another for two hours constitutes a debate?
Here is
an idea. Why not change the format to a round-robin series of one on one debates
where the questions are written by the voting public, selected by the RNC and
published in advance for all to review. Why not use one set of classic parliamentary
or debate society rules instead of Marquess Of Queensberry rules and make the
moderator little more than a time keeper, not some overblow agenda laden
celebrity news buffoon. Why not let the RNC produce the debates, pick and pay
for the venue themselves and then open it up to simultaneous coverage by any
media outlet that wants to broadcast it. Let the Republican National Committee
control the venue, content and questions, let the people voting in the
Republican primary finally have a fair and unbiased look at the people they are
voting for and let the Republican candidates do the rest. We would like it to be known the exhibits that were shown
were exclusively our own, All our own. All our own…
were exclusively our own, All our own. All our own…
Buddy Walker
Buddysays.net
Special thanks to Emerson Lake and Palmer for use of
their lyrics.
Here is a link to Karn Evil 9 in case you have forgotten
or are too young to remember.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwSTe9uit48
