I don’t care that ABC’s moderators were tough on Obama. The candidate himself has said this is just a preview. And I’m confident we’ll see far worse in the months to come. I know that the only people who will ever get a fair shake from our media all have an ‘R’ after their names. (Though it does vaguely annoy me to see people celebrating this as some sort of triumph for their team.)
And people at ABC must be scratching their heads today, wondering: “Why are we getting beat up on this? We’ve been this way for years!” And they’re right. And so have all their corporate competitors. It’s not a debate: it’s Fear Factor with famous people! The whole Democratic primary has been a season of Political Survivor, and the more outrageous it gets, the better the networks think they’re doing. Do you think they’re ashamed of what they did last night? They see those ratings, and your outrage, and they see dollar signs. Feedback is attention, and they are the ultimate attention whores.
I don’t have video for this, but let’s listen to a couple of questions and answers from a different kind of debate, before the right-wing co-opted the media in this country:
The 2nd 1976 Presidential Debate,
October 6, 1976MS. FREDERICK: Good evening. I'm Pauline Frederick of NPR, moderator of this second of the historic debates of the 1976 campaign between Gerald R. Ford of Michigan, Republican candidate for president, and Jimmy Carter of Georgia, Democratic candidate for president. Thank you, President Ford and thank you, Governor Carter, for being with us tonight. This debate takes place before an audience in the Palace of Fine Arts Theater in San Francisco. An estimated one hundred million Americans are watching on television as well. San Francisco was the site of the signing of the United Nations Charter, thirty one years ago. Thus, it is an appropriate place to hold this debate, the subject of which is foreign and defense issues.
The questioners tonight are Max Frankel, associate editor of the New York Times, Henry L. Trewhitt, diplomatic correspondent of the Baltimore Sun, and Richard Valeriani, diplomatic correspondent of NBC News. The ground rules are basically the same as they were for the first debate two weeks ago. The questions will be alternated between candidates. By the toss of a coin, Governor Carter will take the first question. Each question sequence will be as follows: The question will be asked and the candidate will have up to three minutes to answer. His opponent will have up to two minutes to respond. And prior to the response, the questioner may ask a follow-up question to clarify the candidate's answer when necessary with up to two minutes to reply. Each candidate will have three minutes for a closing statement at the end. President Ford and Governor Carter do not have notes or prepared remarks with them this evening, but they may take notes during the debate and refer to them. Mr. Frankel, you have the first question for Governor Carter.
MR. FRANKEL: Governor, since the Democrats last ran our foreign policy, including many of the men who are advising you, country has been relieved of the Vietnam agony and the military draft, we've started arms control negotiations with the Russians, we've opened relations with China, we've arranged the disengagement in the Middle East, we've regained influence with the Arabs without deserting Israel, now, maybe we've even begun a process of peaceful change in Africa. Now you've objected in this campaign to the style with which much of this was done, and you've mentioned some other things that - that you think ought to have been done. But do you really have a quarrel with this Republican record? Would you not have done any of those things?
MR. CARTER: Well I think this Republican administration has been almost all style, and spectacular, and not substance. We've - got a chance tonight to talk about, first of all, leadership, the character of our country, and a vision of the future. In every one of these instances, the Ford administration has failed, and I hope tonight that I and Mr. Ford will have a chance to discuss the reasons for those failures. Our country is not strong anymore; we're not respected anymore. We can only be strong overseas if we're strong at home; and when I became president we'll not only be strong in those areas but also in defense - a defense capability second to none. We've lost in our foreign policy, the character of the American people. We've - ignored or excluded the American people and the Congress from participation in the shaping of our foreign policy. It's been one of secrecy and exclusion. In addition to that we've had a chance to became now, contrary to our long-standing beliefs and principles, the arms merchant of the whole world. We've tried to buy success from our enemies, and at the same time we've excluded from the process the normal friendship of our allies. In addition to that we've become fearful to compete with the Soviet Union on an equal basis. We talk about detente. The Soviet Union knows what they want in detente, and they've been getting it. We have not known what we've wanted and we've been out-traded in almost every instance. The other point I wanna make is about our defense. We've got to be a nation blessed with a defense capability that's efficient, tough, capable, well organized, narrowly focused - fighting capability. The ability to fight, if necessary, is the best way to avoid the chance for, or the requirement to fight. And the last point I wanna make is this: Mr. Ford, Mr. Kissinger have - continued on with the policies and failures of Richard Nixon. Even the Republican platform has criticized the lack of leadership in Mr. Ford and they've criticized the foreign policy of this administration. This is one instance where I agree with - with the Republican platform. I might say this in closing, and that is that as far as foreign policy goes, Mr. Kissinger has been the president of this country. Mr. Ford has shown an absence of leadership, and an absence of a grasp of what this country is and what it ought to be. That's got to be changed. And that's one of the major issues in this - campaign of 1976.
MS. FREDERICK: President Ford, would you like to respond?
MR. FORD: Governor Carter again is talking in broad generalities. Let me take just one question that he raises - the military strength and capability of the United States. Governor Carter in November of 1975 indicated that he wanted to cut the defense budget by $15 billion. A few months later, he said he wanted to cut the defense budget by eight or nine billion dollars. And more recently, he talks about cutting the defense budget by five to seven billion dollars. There is no way you can be strong militarily and have those kind of reductions in our military - appropriation. Now let me just tell you a little story. About - late October of 1975, I asked the then Secretary of Defense, Mr. Schlesinger, to tell me what had to be done if we were going to reduce the defense budget by - three to five billion dollars. A few days later, Mr. Schlesinger came back and said if we cut the defense budget by three to five billion dollars, we will have to cut military personnel by two hundred and fifty thousand, civilian personnel by a hundred thousand, jobs in America by a hundred thousand. We would have to stretch out our aircraft procurement, we would have to reduce our naval construction program, we would have to reduce the - research and development for the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and Marines by 8 percent. We would have to close twenty military bases in the United States immediately. That's the kind of defense program that - Mr. Carter wants. Let me tell you this straight from the shoulder. You don't negotiate with Mr. Brezhnev from weakness. And the kind of defense program that Mr. Carter wants will mean a weaker defense and a poor negotiating position.
MS. FREDERICK: Mr. Trewhitt, a question for President Ford.
MR. TREWHITT: Mr. President, my question really is the other side of the coin from Mr. Frankel's. For a generation the United States has had a foreign policy based on containment of Communism. Yet we have lost the first war in Vietnam; we lost a shoving match in Angola. - the Communists threatened to come to power by peaceful means in Italy and relations generally have cooled with the Soviet Union in the last few months. So le- let me ask you first, what do you do about such cases as Italy? And secondly, does this general drift mean that we're moving back toward something like an old cold - cold-war relationship with the Soviet Union?
MR. FORD: I don't believe we should move to a cold-war relationship. I think it's in the best interest of the United States, and the world as a whole that the United States negotiate rather than go back to the cold-war relationship with the Soviet Union. I don't - look at the picture as bleakly as you have indicated in your question, Mr. Trewhitt. I believe that the United States ha- had many successes in recent years, in recent months, as far as the Communist movement is concerned. We have been successful in Portugal, where a year ago it looked like there was a very great possibility that the - Communists would take over in Portugal. It didn't happen. We have a democracy in Portugal today. A few - months ago, or I should say, maybe two years ago, the Soviet Union looked like they had continued strength in the Middle East. Today, according to Prime Minister Rabin, the Soviet Union is weaker in the Middle East than they have been in many, many years. The facts are, there - the Soviet Union relationship with Egypt is - at a low level. The Soviet Union relationship with Syria is at a very low point. The United States today, according to Prime Minister Rabin of Israel, is a- at a peak in its - influence and power in the Middle East. But let's turn for a minute to the uhh - southern African operations that are now going on. The United States of America took the initiative in southern Africa. We wanted to end the bloodshed in southern Africa. We wanted to have the right of self-determination in southern Africa. We wanted to have majority rule with the full protection of the rights of the minority. We wanted to preserve human dignity in southern Africa. We have taken the initiative, and in southern Africa today the United States is trusted by the black front-line nations and black Africa. The United States is trusted by other elements in southern Africa. The United States foreign policy under this administration has been one of progress and success. And I believe that instead of talking about Soviet progress, we can talk about American successes. And may I make an observation - part of the question you asked, Mr. Trewhitt? I don't believe that it's in the best interest of the United States and the NATO nations to have a Communist government in NATO. Mr. Carter has indicated he would look with sympathy to a Communist government in NATO. I think that would destroy the integrity and the strength of NATO, and I am totally opposed to it.
MR. CARTER: Well, Mr. Ford, unfortunately, has just made a statement that's not true. I have never advocated a Communist government for Italy. That would obviously be a ridiculous thing for anyone to do who wanted to be president of this country. I think that this is - an instance of - deliberate distortion, and this has occurred also in the question about defense. As a matter of fact, - I've never advocated any cut of $15 billion in our defense budget. As a matter of fact, Mr. Ford has made a political football out of the defense budget. About a year ago he cut the Pentagon budget six point eight billion dollars. After he fired James Schlesinger, the political heat got so great that he added back about $3 billion. When Ronald Reagan won the Texas primary election, Mr. Ford added back another one and a half billion dollars. Immediately before the Kansas City convention, he added back another one point eight billion dollars in the defense budget. And his own - Office of Management and Budget testified that he had a $3 billion cut insurance added to the defense budget - defense budget under the pressure from the Pentagon. Obviously, this is another indication of trying to use the defense budget for political purposes, which he's trying to do tonight. Now, we went into south Africa late, after Great Britain, Rhodesia, the black nations had been trying to solve this problem for many, many years. We didn't go in until right before the election, similar to what was taking place in 1972, when Mr. Kissinger announced peace is at hand just before the election at that time. And we have weakened our position in NATO because the other countries in Europe supported the democ- democratic forces in Portugal long before we did; we stuck to the Portugal dictatorships much longer than other democracies did in this world.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/debatingourdestiny/76debates/2_a.html That’s what debates used to be like. Contrast that with the twittery that was foisted on us last night. The news media in this country - as Bob Somerby, Digby, Atrios, the Rude Pundit and others have been pointing out for years - is captive to The Village it lives in. ABC is just one pimple on the obscene ass that passes for political journalism these days. The corporate news media are the enemy. They happily play up republican notions of what is proper in a presidential candidate – a standard which is seldom if ever applied to the republicans themselves.
It’s nice to see ABC taking heat for their sloppy work, but this is about a lot more than last night’s debate. This is about what has occurred on our television sets for the last 28 years. If perchance it favored Hillary last night, be sure it won't always be so favorable.
Finally, I’ll note: neither Ford nor Carter wore lapel pins in that debate. And no one brought it up. No doubt the columnists present were all too embarrassed at this lack of patriotism in their candidates to mention it.
(Bonus points for any discussion of the arguments they made. They each had their moments, and there are times when Ford is correct and Carter is wrong.)
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