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OCTOBER 27, 2003 – Here’s a
question for you: who do you think the commentators on FOX News
deemed the winner of the Democratic presidential candidate debate
they hosted last night?
Better yet, raise your hand if you
believe there was any chance that, immediately following the debate,
the FOX News commentators were going to say that any of the
candidates who participated showed they were capable of beating
George W. Bush?
I see nine hands standing up, and those
are all of Democratic presidential hopefuls.
You see, morons, FOX News is a station
that exists wholly to deride all of you and ensure that George W.
Bush and other Bush/Limbaugh brand “blame and lie” Republicans win
office after office after office.
And the reason FOX News has hosted not
one, but two debates of you nine idiots is because they are using
you to get Democrats to watch their station – the station they will
then use to try and convince these Democrats that you are all
worthless and pathetic and George W. Bush is inevitable for
re-election.
It would be one thing if a single one of
you either naïve or ballless morons took the opportunity to confront
FOX News head-on while you were given the rarest of opportunities,
airtime on the right-wing puppet media during which there are no
bullying hosts to talk over you .
How about when one of the questioners
posed the standard right-wing talk radio nonsense, “To repeal the
Bush tax cuts, is that a tax hike on those who’ve seen a
reduction?” Anyone with a brain knows that is not a useful
question. It is not even an actual question. A question would try
to find out something, such as if the questioner was unsure about
whether or not a candidate wanted to repeal the President’s massive
tax cuts. But the questioner already knew the answer, and was
simply inserting right-wing nonsense and attempting to steer one of
these imbecilic Democrats into a lose-lose situation.
There, in fact, could only be one useful
response to such a question, which gave a perfect opportunity to
show that these candidates realize that the biggest problem they
face is the right-wing domination of the media: “Well,” a useful
candidate would have said, “it depends. If you watch a right-wing
puppet station like the one hosting this debate, FOX News, it will
be called a tax hike. If you listen to AM radio, also right-wing
puppet, all of it, they will call it a tax hike. If you read the
Washington Times, NY Post, Philadelphia Enquirer or any of the other
right-wing puppet papers, they will call it a tax hike. Even more,
if you watch ABC, NBC, or any major corporate news source, they will
echo the right-wing propaganda put out there by FOX News , AM radio,
and the right-wing puppet papers, and so ask the stupid, useless
question you just asked. When the reality is that no useful person
cares what stupid label it is given, they care about what is best
for America. And if rolling back the tax hikes is what is best,
that is what is important, not some stupid label
right-wing-owned-and-operated puppets like yourself are told to put
out there again and again to shift focus from the fact that the
President has destroyed the economy.”
Which candidate gave that response? Of
course none, but wait, it gets even better.
FOX News took an entire segment of the
debate – as they had during the last debate they hosted – to echo
the AM radio, grade-school level diversionary line about each of the
candidates. In their standard practice of making slanted lies sound
like unbiased, everyman commentary, they called this segment, “the
conventional wisdom round.” Pretty nice, huh? Just saying, in
their usual “fair and balanced way” what they claim is what most
people think about them – and, of course, all of it turned out to be
insulting slams.
One by one, the questioners confronted
the candidates with what was the supposed “rap” on them. And one by
one, the candidates played along in their roles as wusses in this
right-wing game by not attacking the question but, instead, giving
their usual, at times self-deprecating, defensive answers.
Not one! Not a single one, when told,
“The rap on you is that you are a Northeastern, liberal elitist and
that you have some problem connecting with people. How do you
dispel that notion,” had anything witty or counterattacking to say,
such as, “I simply tell them to stop listening to right-wing puppet
stations like FOX News.” Again, it was another perfect opportunity
for each of the candidates to take on the biggest problem facing
them and the host that was just waiting until they stopped talking
to get back to slamming them and pushing President Bush’s
re-election.
When Gephardt was asked, “You ran for
president in 1988. (This time), a lot of (unions) appear to be
hanging back (from supporting you.) Has your moment passed?” or
Edwards was told, “You’re a trial lawyer and, therefore, you’re
supposed to be compromised by that somehow,” did they respond by
saying, “I didn’t know ‘conventional wisdom’ really meant right-wing
propaganda,” or asking, “Well, first let me ask you, what do you
consider the conventional wisdom is about President Bush?” A line
like that would not only have gotten huge applause, but put the
FOX-owned-and-operated questioner in a position where she would have
to either give a solid line of criticism of President Bush, or, if
she refused, make clear she is just Democrat-bashing, launching
right-wing attacks on all of them loosely disguised as a basic
“common wisdom” dispelling opportunity.
None of this happened.
At one point Lieberman was even given a
great opening when one of the questioners made a joke about Rush
Limbaugh being in rehab.
Nothing.
Dean at one point showed he knows that
the media is the issue. In his closing statement he said, “We have
the power to take back the USA so our flag is not owned by John
Ashcroft, Rush Limbaugh, and Jerry Falwell.” A very good remark
that shows at least one of the candidates is aware the issue is not
just George Bush, and that to win the election, they must take on
exactly the trilogy of opponents Howard Dean delineated: the Bush
administration, the right-wing puppet media, and the evangelical
religious ultra-right.
However, leaving that point for one mere
sentence in his final question, while for the rest of the debate
going along with the façade that this debate was anything other than
a ploy by FOX News to sucker independents and Democrats over to
watch their station so they can bash all of these candidates as soon
as the debate is over – and for the next year after that until
election day – shows that none of these candidates get it yet. Not
a single one gets the fact that if they do not make taking on the
right-wing domination of the media a top priority, they can not and
will not win. In fact, if they don’t lead the charge, not only will
George W. Bush win re-election, not only will he win it by a
landslide, but Bush-brand Republicans will sweep into even greater
control of both houses of Congress.
But the Democrats wanted to sit and
respond about the same stupid questions about the tax cut, the war
in Iraq – everyone who cares about issues already knows where you
stand on these things, and people who don’t care to look into things
only care about what persona you put out there and what stupid
charges are put out there by the right-wing media and echoed by the
rest of the press.
No, there was nothing to gain by
participating in last night’s FOX News-sponsored debate. Not by
answering the questions and attacking each other about policies.
The only way any candidate should have agreed to debate for a
right-wing puppet station like FOX was if they were going to turn
the tables and use the forum to point out to FOX viewers what a sham
their station is. Of course, none did.
None of the Democratic candidates get it
yet, and so it seems likely George W. Bush will be easily
re-elected, no matter how badly things go with Iraq or the economy.
Debates are not a quiz, where you get points based on giving the
best answers with the most statistics and soundest policies. No, as
Arnold Schwarzenegger just showed out in California, you can win by
a landslide even without any statistics or actual policies. But one
thing is required: a strategy.
Responding like drones to endless
repetitions of the same questions is not a strategy. Allowing the
right-wing puppet media to play a game, using you as the pawns, is
not a good strategy. All of these people try to tell us they would
have a better plan for Iraq, but really, if they can’t even come up
with a useful plan for an obviously booby-trapped debate, how could
they possibly come up with a useful plan for a war?
To answer the question posed at the
beginning of the article, the commentators unanimously chose Dean as
the winner among the Democrats, and then immediately shifted to
saying how stupid the Democrats – especially war-opposing Dean –
are, because they don’t get that people support the war. The war is
so popular. And so President Bush will have a cakewalk against any
one of these candidates.
Wow, what a surprise ending. FOX News
chose George W. Bush as the winner of the Democratic presidential
candidate debate. Imagine what else the people you Democrats lured
over to FOX News will hear as they watch the station in the future.
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