civil debate
Watching the commentary about the debate the other night, you'd think it was terrific. One commentator said it was the best debate he'd seen in over 50 years.
Now that is media bias. The fact is that the media are often biased, and that bias goes in one direction: toward sensationalism. They love conflict, they love the race, they love fireworks, they love death and dismemberment. Naturally: look at who pays their bills. (A: both parties' presidential campaigns. The numbers are terrifying.)
Meanwhile, several of my friends have remarked that the debate the other night was a dispiriting mess. Many saw both candidates going at it with passion: what I saw was something else. What I saw was two people vying for the highest office in the land, proving literally every two minutes that they both think the rules don't apply to them.
I can't think of a more perfect snapshot of our polity right now than that, with the representative of the people occasionally raising a pinky (for one candidate, half a pinky for the other) in a weak-tea attempt at discipline, while nonetheless letting both candidates run on roughshod. And then jumping in with completely unnecessary commentary, thus doing what she shouldn't have and not doing what she should have. There were three people abusing the rules, all night.
I got into a trap of thinking that something's gone terribly wrong in recent decades, and that we could search for a better debate model although we'd be searching in vain because we apparently don't want it — after all, the only publicly visible people serious about politics are the ones who shout over each other every Sunday morning. But that is a trap. We've done better, and we've done better recently.
Remember the Kerry-Bush debates? Everybody got to say everything they wanted to, and everybody played by the rules they'd agreed to. I have no idea why. Maybe the rules had teeth; maybe the moderator had a mute button; maybe 8 years ago was a golden time in the ages of man. Whatever the reason, you can go back and look at the results. On at least one night in our recent history, the time ran out and the candidates stopped and let their opponent talk. And it must've been pretty ingrained: most of the time, both Bush and Kerry stopped a second or two early.
We've done it before. Apparently we can do it again. But we won't unless we can get the message across that this last debate was completely unacceptable.
Now that is media bias. The fact is that the media are often biased, and that bias goes in one direction: toward sensationalism. They love conflict, they love the race, they love fireworks, they love death and dismemberment. Naturally: look at who pays their bills. (A: both parties' presidential campaigns. The numbers are terrifying.)
Meanwhile, several of my friends have remarked that the debate the other night was a dispiriting mess. Many saw both candidates going at it with passion: what I saw was something else. What I saw was two people vying for the highest office in the land, proving literally every two minutes that they both think the rules don't apply to them.
I can't think of a more perfect snapshot of our polity right now than that, with the representative of the people occasionally raising a pinky (for one candidate, half a pinky for the other) in a weak-tea attempt at discipline, while nonetheless letting both candidates run on roughshod. And then jumping in with completely unnecessary commentary, thus doing what she shouldn't have and not doing what she should have. There were three people abusing the rules, all night.
I got into a trap of thinking that something's gone terribly wrong in recent decades, and that we could search for a better debate model although we'd be searching in vain because we apparently don't want it — after all, the only publicly visible people serious about politics are the ones who shout over each other every Sunday morning. But that is a trap. We've done better, and we've done better recently.
Remember the Kerry-Bush debates? Everybody got to say everything they wanted to, and everybody played by the rules they'd agreed to. I have no idea why. Maybe the rules had teeth; maybe the moderator had a mute button; maybe 8 years ago was a golden time in the ages of man. Whatever the reason, you can go back and look at the results. On at least one night in our recent history, the time ran out and the candidates stopped and let their opponent talk. And it must've been pretty ingrained: most of the time, both Bush and Kerry stopped a second or two early.
We've done it before. Apparently we can do it again. But we won't unless we can get the message across that this last debate was completely unacceptable.
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