Sep 30, 2008

A new kind of debate

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we need a President who will always tell the truth!" - John McCain on 9/29/08 talking about Barack Obama's performance in last Friday night's debate.

John McCain has apparently not heard the one about the pot and the kettle.


I want to see a new kind of Presidential debate. Less of a debate, actually, and more of a question and answer session.

I want a moderator, someone like RW maybe, to call out each man on either the lies or the misleading attacks each one has perpetuated. The moderator can pick 4 or 5 specific attacks committed by each candidate and ask that man directly what he meant when he said those things. Then he can give his opponent a chance to defend himself. Afterwards each man would be forced to admit that they either lied, purposely mis-led or were ignorant of the facts. The first time that one of them refuses to do so in plain words, he gets his microphone turned off for the next round of questions. And he gets yelled at by the moderator. For being a lying douchebag!

A straight talk Q&A session. No bullshit. None. That's what I want to see.

They can start with how to properly pronounce "Warshington".

PS - And while Republicans are jawing at Nancy Pelosi for grandstanding and placing the blame for our current fiscal crisis on the Bush administration before the vote actually occurred yesterday, John McCain was doing exactly the same thing on the campaign trail in Ohio. Taking credit for getting the job done. Man, all these politicians suck! I don't know if the $700 billion deal is a good one, but now both sides are claiming the other side tried to make it about politics before the vote. Since they didn't like that, they voted against the bill. Their feelings were hurt so they changed their mind on the vote. For a party that has been claiming "country first" throughout the campaign, the country seems to be the last thing they were thinking about today. My Dad used to tell me that two wrongs don't make a right. I think this falls under that header. Feh.

19 comments:

Avitable said...

And then they should joust and the loser falls into a pool.

Verdant Earl said...

Avitable - only if the pool is filled with sharks. With frickin' laser beams.

Kaye Waller said...

Hell, I'd settle for ill-tempered, mutated sea bass.

Unknown said...

I've been trying hard to like Obama, and still haven't given up. But, what you said in the middle of that post really caught my eye.

"Man, all these politicians suck!"

jiggs said...

My understanding is that the republicans are getting tons of mail from their constituents telling them not to vote for it, and so they weren't going to vote for it anyway, and some are just using the pelosi speech as an excuse.

I bet the 40% of democrats that also didn't vote for it secretly wished that pelosi had insulted them prior to the vote so they would have had an excuse too.

RW said...

I'll be there. Just name the day.

Slyde said...

i guess im just naive in the political world, but i think the biggest disserve we do to ourselves is having political parties in the first place.

we should vote for people based soley on the issues, not along political lines...

Verdant Earl said...

Steph - :)

MikeB - every single one of them. Including Obama.

Jiggs - I have no problem with any Republican or Democrat voting "no" on the proposition because they or their constituents hate it. That would be fine with me. But the politics behind yesterday's fiasco is what is killing me. The blame game. Feh.

RW - I knew you would be the man for the job.

Slyde - political parties, organized religion...anything that divides us I have a problem with.

Bruce Johnson said...

Since politics has become the new "Survivor / Amazing Race" reality show of the 21st Century, I would like to see Jeff Probst moderate the debate and have it involve Super Soakers and Tazers.......that is how I want to pick my next president.

Verdant Earl said...

Lotus - the super soakers sound too tame. Now I could get into the tasers!

Michelle said...

b.e. our country is going to pot fast!!! And i don't mean the kind you smoke, although maybe if the candidates took part in the question and answer (your way) while high, things would get done and we could see the real people behind the facade of idiocy. I'm just saying!!

Michelle

Brown said...

All this really makes my head hurt. We never get a straight answer from anyone. There's an attack. A repost. Another attack. Fervent Denial. Who really ever knows who is ever telling the truth? They should both be hooked up to fucking polygraph machines and electric chairs. Ah, the sweet smell of cinged hair and skin!

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know how many people there are in America? Seriously, what is the population of the United States? Take $700,000,000,000.00 divide it by the population of tax paying Americans and cut the fucking checks! That is a bailout.

Charmaine said...

One of the problems is that the Congressmen/women on both sides don't even understand the bill.

They rely on "experts" with possible hidden agendas to illuminate them.

What I find most infuriating is what both candidates say; "We have to take action now, then figure out who is to blame later".

That's like saying, "We have two men in jail. One is a theif and the other isn't. We must bail them both out and then decide which one is the thief". You know that once we let the theif out, he will slip out the back door with our money. That's what thieves DO.

I know we need to do something. The first thing we should do is throw the bastards responsible for creating this mess in jail. Not rescue them.

Charmaine said...

Woa. I didn't see that coming.

De-regulation of the corporate sector has screwed us all.

It was meant to "stimulate competition" all it did was remove a beaurcratic watchful eye that would keep these fellars honest.

They are avaricious thieves...and they are getting away with it. Enron, Haliburton all in bed with the current administration. They keep us so afraid of impending doom that everyone stands by and watches...waiting for the other shoe to drop.

We are all terrified and that, my friends, is how you control people.

Verdant Earl said...

Michelle - a smoke-off. I like it.

Mr. Poopie - that would settle it.

WLC - $2,324,50 per person, based on the 2007 estimates. I'll take it.

Charmaine - You would have thought that the era of deregulation might have ended with the excesses of Enron a few years back. I guess it takes a village to raise a white flag.

Anonymous said...

Aight Earl, I'm back. Sadly we weren't able to play "Barrack You Like A Hurricane" the other night at Heff's. I tried though.

The Trailer Of Love

Verdant Earl said...

Wil - just as long as you rocked out as much Ozzy as possible.

marty mankins said...

I'm against the bailout, even though it's now going to happen (at almost $1 trillion). I agree that both sides are not doing things to help. Would be nice to see some type of resolve to all of this without having to bailout banks that failed to their own stupidness.