Friday, October 3, 2008
Watching the debates, sort of
In the olden days, people didn’t know much about events outside their particular village, and I think it’s too much to ask of the human brain to have to take in every horrific, or even semi-horrific thing that happens on the globe. Therefore it behooves us to moderate our intake of news carefully—especially a sensitive flower like me, and one who has a cold yet. So I gave a lot of thought to how I might keep up with last night’s debate while avoiding emotional overload. In the end I chose not to watch, but read the blow-by-blow blog posts on Daily Kos and when it was over called Deedee in Chicago, banking on the knowledge that we have agreed on absolutely everything since we were 14, to find out what we thought of it all. Having established its relative safety, this morning I watched it on my new iPhone over breakfast, and discovered that if the protagonists are teeny weeny, as they must be on an iPhone screen, current events are much more palatable. It helped, of course, that I already knew that Biden acquitted himself admirably, and that Palin, while proving that she could be coached for a debate, was still appalling (what was with all that winking? And “Joe Six-pack” is going to help solve the economic crisis? Was she trying for the alcoholic vote?) My favorite line of the evening, however, came not from the debaters but a commenter on Daily Kos, one Walt Starr, who wrote: “Palin needs to be reminded that Jesus Christ was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor.”
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2 comments:
Ha ha! That's great.
I had out-patient surgery yesterday and had to spend time on the couch with my leg up, and I watched about 4 hours of post debate reflection, from the McNeil Lehrer report to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report to Bill Moyers (a good way to end it - my eyeballs had started to melt anyway...)
I wondered about the value of a debate that was so constricted, how much actual helpful infomation we could glean, but I guess we learn something about the candidates even if we are only watching their body language, which was as you noticed with the winking, pretty funny at times.
I spent 4 hours on the phone Thursday night here in Maine doing some polling for Move-On. We had lists of Undecided voters up in northern rural Maine to call - we were to ask who they plan to vote for and to offer encouragemant and information if they are leaning toward Obama.
I phoned 72 households. Alot of folks were not at home, and several refused to tell me who they were voting for. But out of the rest, everyone I spoke to was voting for Obama or leaning toward Obama. I had only 1 person(outwardly admitting) that she was voting for McCain. This surprised me - I expected more leaning to the right in that part of the state! Encouraging!!! I will be on the phones again for the next four weeks...
We were on vacation, and in the evening, after walks with our four-legged children on the beach, leisurely bike rides, and a surf cast or two, we would turn on the news. By Wednesday night, I could take the talking heads no longer and threatened my husband with rod removal (fishing) if he dared turn the dial to CNN again before we returned home. Of course, I was pretty much caught up by the time we arrived home Saturday evening, since it’s a six-hour drive. But, the debate I missed. I listened to reviews but happily missed watching that woman (I honestly did not think it was possible that any politician would turn my stomach quicker than W, but she takes that prize). A friend just sent me Tina Fey’s reenactment, however… it's worth a look. Of course, the piece also points out that Joe Biden is pretty much of an ass himself. If you’ve not seen it, SNL VP debate.
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