When Candidates Attack

I just got cable put in today, and obviously I haven't watched enough Fox News, because my mind is blown at the production on the intro to the Democratic candidates debate. I'm thinking Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, or maybe American Gladiators: "General Wesley Clark, Governor Howard Dean… and Niiiiitrooooo!"

Comments

[Ryan Jensen]

Well, Howard Dean certainly seems like he could be a cast member on American Gladiators or in the WWE.

[Andrew Lynch]

C'mon, Julian. I'm "watching" the pathetic New Hampshire candidate debate while working on things that actually mean something to my family, and I'm aghast at a number things. You're focused on MTV. Can we talk about the abject failure of the Democratic party to communicate meaningfully with the American people? Is that important? Bueller?

I'm not going to spread the candidate-comparison meme, or any memes about the meme-reliance of the compared candidates, since that's you and your colleagues' job.

Nothing was said in the 72 minutes I listened. Nothing. Why isn't anybody talking about the fact that these people are empty husks with not a vital, realistic tic in their made-up faces, that they are conditioned by the horrible yoke of public life to parrot rather than intrigue? They are demographic Frankensteins. They pander casually and with insulting frequency. They respond with non-answers, other answers, unrelated answers, and sometimes with answers that simply puke back up the text of their "About Me" web site pages.

And don't get me started (I'm started) on the pompous, uneloquent, starchy, stentorian fools who posed questions. Questions lifted directly from the Nexus-search result of most-written-about-domestic-and-foreign issues. Has anybody here actually crawled away from his/her computer and asked a friend, colleague, neighbor, relative if they give a flying f**k about the final disposition of the gay-marriage issue? Of course, not. Because you don't care, either, unless you're Tom from Texas.

Hell, Bush could nuke San Francisco because somebody overcooked his t-bone and STILL win re-election. Blech.

[steve]

lmfao! wish i had thought of that!

[dhex]

dude, you just described every fucking politician in my lifetime. bless you.

[Russ D]

Fox just wastes their air time differently that others, that's all. Every station has lots of time to fill and no content to fill it with.

The FOX station in Chicago does this on its local news... for EVERY freakin' segment!!

They can't just say "On the Health beat...", they have to use a 6-second production number to tell you they're going to give you 2 bad, undetailed, misleading health reports that add up to zero. This is why it takes them 60 minutes to give two minutes of news.

[steve]

The debates remind me more of Survivor than American Gladiator with the sniping and carping and grandstanding.

If all you are familiar with are the national broadcast stations, who attempt a "serious" posture, then Fox News, with the heavy makeup, loud intros, and rapid video edits, will appear to be the "slutty but fun" choice. At least it does to me. 🙂

[dhex]

i'd always considered it the brainchild of a starfucking cokewhore and a repressed midwestern preacher type. hence the fixation on celebrity and child molestation.

[Bruce]

"Slutty but fun" is a much better tagline than "Fair and Balanced."

[DFH]

The good thing about going for the stupid vote is that it's such a large constituency.

The bad thing about going for the stupid vote is that they have such a difficult time using those god-awful complex voting machines.