Oh holy hell, that debate was HORRID.

[TheWraith]

They might as well have had Sean Hannity moderate it. A constant stream of bullshit non-issues, "gotcha" politics, and sliming. Keith Olbermann put it perfectly: the most totally tabloid debate of the season. Less a debate than slogging through great mounds of bullshit. The first 50-odd minutes were nothing but the moderators throwing right-wing talking points at the candidates and trying to bite them with it somehow. They handled it, though not great: Obama sounded like he was parsing and squirming on Wright, and Clinton got faced with the Bosnia sniper story. They recovered a bit when it came back to issues.

Best moment: Obama sending it back into the ABC News jackasses' faces over Ayers, asking them if he should also repudiate his acquaintence with Tom Coburn, and if Hillary should repudiate Bill for his pardoning two members of the Weather Underground.

[GarbagemanLB]

1. I thought that msnbc debate was horrible...this one was so much worse. Gotcha on ALL sides.

[TheWraith]

3. Gibson and George Steph need to be punched hard in the face.

They were atrocious--literally attacking the candidates, interrupting, demanding answers to bullshit questions... ugh.

[uponit7771]

10. LOL!! Just hard? What about extra hard? heh heh...too funny

[TheWraith]

12. Well, I wanted to be more gentle than my initial thought...

...Which was that they should be fed to a wood chipper.

[uponit7771]

13. heh heh....I don't know why this tickles me to death

[parasim]

2. That as no debate.

It was just the press trying to illicit a gaffe or two. it mainly served as a vehicle for the media to push the candidates to say something they could use to flagellate into getting them better ratings.

[TragedyandHope]

4. SHAME on you, ABC!

VOTE in the ABC News Debate Poll

VOTE in the MSNBC Debate Poll

[bunny planet]

7. There should be a question about who lost.

Answer: The American people
What a disgrace that debate was. I really despise this pathetic excuse for a media we seem to be stuck with for the most part.

[Renaissance Man]

5. Charlie Gibson

When Charlie Gibson started "debating" Sen. Obama over the issue of capital gains taxes, that's when I knew this debate was a farce. Somewhere along the line, he forgot that he was supposed to moderate and not debate.

[grantcart]

6. The good side is that it was so bad that it will

1) energize his base

2) give him material to riff on - everyone will want to see his next speech and it will be a riot

3) everyone knows it was unfair.

[anonymous171]

8. Yep. Even Russert wasn't this bad. At least he let the candidates explain themselves.

[grantcart]

31. and he also did some original digging not just shoveling the same shit

[pompano]

11. abRNC

For the rest of my born days they are abRNC.

Well, until George Stuffitinallofus is gone.

[crispini]

9. I feel sorry for the Pennsylvania voters.

This was supposed to be their debate and what a load of cretinous horseshit they got. THEY were the ones watching and wanting to know about the issues. Sorry PA voters. You got screwed.

[DemBones DemBones]

14. It was sad. Obama doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, he stammered

and rambled while Clinton knows what she's talking about and expressed herself clearly.

This is why Obama cannot win.

He is inexperienced, can't handle criticism, and the criticism is only going to get worse. More and more will be revealed about his ties to nefarious people.

He's never won against a serious opponent -- he just eliminated the competition by getting them all disqualified on technicalities about their petitions to "win" his first election with NO opponents.

When he ran for the U.S. Senate, the two Repubs who could have been strong opponents had to drop out after their divorce records were somehow made public. The GOP brought in Alan Keyes from MD just to have somebody in the race but Obama just skated to a win. Emil Jones helped him phony up a good record in his last year in the Illinois senate, making other senators let Obama take credit for their bills so he'd have a "record" to run on.

He's been skating all his life, using his charm to get by. That's not enough for a president.

[anonymous171]

15. It was enough for Bill.

[nuncvendetta]

18. alrighty, policy wonk . . .

if Obama "doesn't know what he's talking about," list a policy position upon which Hillary and Obama disagree and tell me how hers is functionally better or at the very least has more appealing normative components.

Throughout the debate, I was at times taken aback by the patent lack of understanding that Hillary seemed to possess over various subjects. Take her oil strategy, for example. Hillary said during the debate that reducing our purchases to fill the strategic petroleum reserve will have a significant impact on the price of gas at the pump. How dense in econ. can she be? She should realize that certain elements are going to work against the veracity of her approach, like the inelasticity of demand for oil or the oligopolistic nature of suppliers, not to mention dynamic competitive externalities like the game theoretic demand responses of other purchasers. or the weak dollar. I mean, goodness gracious.

Unless you can demonstrate to me that on balance she had less of these glaringly asinine moments than Obama when it comes to substantive policy and not obfuscatory fluff, your contention fails to hold water.

In fact, it is my contention that if anything, Hillary shows a disrespect for the American people by frequently trying to "tug at the heart strings" by taking complex problems and making it seem like there's an easy fix-all because it seems easy to swallow and plays into people's misconceptions. Like her approach to the housing crisis by giving a blanket moratorium on home foreclosures. She has to realize that while this sounds good from the perspective of individuals going through tough economic times, the solution is not narrowly tailored enough and creates perverse incentives for prospective risky behavior. Only a subset of those going through foreclosure are there because of predatory schemes by creditors. Others are there simply because they miscalculated risk. I posit that if the government were to adopt a normative principle that bailed people out when they were simply risky and miscalculated risk, our incentives would not be in the right place to a pretty huge detriment. You would see massive overconsumption and risky practices in so many sectors. Obama's more targeted strategy allows for distinguishing between these two subsets of individuals. MOREOVER, even if we assume fallaciously that her plan does not create improper future incentives, it is an ineffectual way to stave off the root cause of our housing crisis, which is the inability of securitized assetholders to properly valuate stratified bonds which include mortgages of varying risk levels, because they are unfungible and unvalueless until a certain value is prescribed. The longer something is "frozen," the longer these bonds remain valueless, and the longer billions of dollars remain in a black hole of sorts.

Anyway, why in the world can't we have a debate about issues on THIS level? I mean, if one of the roles of a president is to provide leadership and the betterment of the populace, shouldn't the candidates at least collude to raise the level of debate? You'd think that if one were to start off by doing this, the other would have no choice but to respond with the same level of specificity and analysis.

[truedelphi]

30. One of the things that scares me about HIllary as President is that we would be offered this

Policy wonk notion of oil prices.

Just don't drive your car.

Well most of us have already given up driving our cars for anything but non-essential trips.

What is actually CAUSING THIS increase in oil prices is the deflationary tactics of the Federal Reserve Chairman and our government in continuing a policy of throwing out huge piles of money to bolster the failing banks. In other words, We are creating a form of socialicism for the banks by the American taxpayers. A bad bad fiorm of socialism as well - the bakers get to keep any profits, but hand us any bills! Any decent economist will tell you that while Europe sees oil prices rise about 150 to 200%, we re seeing a rise in prices of 300% !!

Every time money is offered to failing banks to bail them out, the dollar deflates. Which might be okay if we were stil producing oil in Texas and Oklahoma as we were during the last Depression - but since we need to buy the oil outside of our country, and pay Euros for it, we should be keeping our currency stable and we should not be doing this!

Hillary and Bill Clinton have long aided and abetted the bankers. About ten days ago, She said that Greenspan should oversee the mortgage mess. What is her problem - greenspan and the deregulation of the banks (by the 1999 Banking deregulation and reform bill) brought about the current crisis!

This video explains it -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwPsiqyOYRE&feature=dir

[TheWraith]

19. It's sad when you try and turn a clearly bullshit event into some kind of great Clinton win.

I guess when Clinton babbled for five minutes apologizing and trying to avoid the word "lie" on the Bosnia issue just slipped past you.

[Voice for Peace]

35. LOL Dem Bones.. you are so funny.

[4_Legs_Good]

16. Is this something Hillary and Obama supporters can agree on?

That the debate was crap?

If so, maybe I will skip it and watch BSG instead. I have 3 seasons to catch up on...

David

[TheWraith]

20. Trust me. Don't watch.

Any episode of Galactica would be a vast improvement.

[4_Legs_Good]

29. Thanks! I'll take you up on that n/t

[Voice for Peace]

36. I think it's worth watching.

I think you get more insight into each of the candidates, if you want it.
It's a little painful, though.. be forewarned.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TheWraith]

21. If you can't contribute anything other than screaming and hatred, please do it elsewhere.

Seriously, you seem unable to contribute anything other than smearing or demeaning.

[durrrty libby]

22. I speak the truth. You hate that. Oh well, continue ....The Whine

The guy is a stuttering fraud and was exposed tonight.That's a good thing

[dbonds]

24. Aparently the after debate polls say hillary sucked harder.

Seems all some hillary supporters know how to do is use 3rd grade insults. Anyone with a brain can see the issue is not Obama's performance, he did a good job. It was the attempted hit job from abc.

[durrrty libby]

25. Anyone with half a brain. witnessed what a suck- ass president BO would be. Scary as hell

[dbonds]

27. It would take only having half a brain to think that.

But that is who the tabloid debates are aimed at - those that can't think for themselves and like to be told what to they should think.

[Justitia]

28. Your Goldwater Girl came off looking like the HUGE LIAR she is, so I wouldn't celebrate much.

So exactly WHY did she pull that sniper story outta her ass?

We never did get an explanation for why she lied her ass off about that....

[VenusRising]

23. From the Progressive...

http://www.progressive.org/mag_mc041608c

[HousePainter]

26. Sorry excuse for Journalism- ABC

I wonder if the Clinton employees who have been writing up a storm on DU the last few days are getting paid by the word.
ABC - My God what a joke that was- a debate? More like a hatchet job.
Now I'm BITTER.
With all of the substantive issues facing us
ABC puts their empty suits up to asking about
Rev. Wright
Bill Ayers
the "bitter" remark
Flag Pins

It goes to show you that our Corporate masters are starting to get worried about Obama's message and momentum.

[Ysabel]

32. hi housepainter and welcome... :)

[LulaMay]

33. Because she shined, and he looked like a fumbler. Not to mention glaringlike he wanted to kill her.

[Voice for Peace]

37. That's funny, I thought he shined, and she fumbled.

[marlakay]

34. article at huffingtonpost worst debate ever! nt