Last night I gave in to all the pre-debate hype - all the talk about how THIS debate would be so unique and driven by the common people. So I watched it. At least for awhile. Once you’ve heard a politician give his/her talking points, there’s no need to hear it regurgitated again and again.
CNN screened the questions and selected a few out of hundreds submitted. So only the questions the powers-that-be at CNN deemed worthwhile were asked. What a waste of time. And what a bunch of crap that the slightly varied format was something unique.
My guess is that the candidates probably had at least an idea of what the questions were prior to the “debate.” But whether or not they did isn’t important. Nothing new was brought out. No new questions were asked. Nothing of substance was learned. It was just another re-hashing of talking points.
The one small benefit of the debate is that it clearly showed that Barack Obama has no business whatsoever being president. He answered that yes, he WOULD meet with the leaders of Cuba, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Venezuela his first year as president. YIKES! I hope people aren’t stupid enough to elect him.
AOL had a recap of the debates and included these quotes that had me shaking my head with incredulity:
“The greatest innovation of this debate is that we’re seeing candidates respond to real voters instead of polished TV personalities,” said Michael Silberman of the online consulting firm EchoDitto. “It’s a win for the candidates who are at their best when addressing voters. It’s a win for democracy, since average Americans outside of the early primary states now have the opportunity to ask direct questions of candidates.”
Incredible! Not even a minimally rational person could honestly believe that last night’s debate was different in any major way than any other debate by presidential candidates. The only difference was that people other than news reporters/journalists were the ones that asked the usual questions that enabled the candidates to give their talking points to a national audience. The average American citizen learned nothing and gained nothing.
Listening to the candidates’ responses reinforced my belief that voting Democratic means voting against what America stands for. It means voting for punishing people for working hard (via higher taxes - the harder you work and the more successful you are - the higher your percentage of taxes), rewarding people for not working (welfare and subsidies) and rewarding people for breaking the law (assistance to illegal immigrants). They couch their socialist leanings in very lofty phrasing, but it is still socialism - and socialism has never been successful for any length of time.
Let’s get back to the basic American principles of rewarding and encouraging hard work and self-sufficiency, helping people rise out of poverty and bad circumstances by giving them a hand UP and not a hand-out, and having enough patriotic pride that we insist that anyone who wants to move here follow the legal channels to do so. All are welcome - just follow the rules to get here.
Seems simple, but there isn’t a single Democratic candidate that supports those basic tenets of American citizenship.
And how about standing by your country’s leaders instead of doing everything in your power to bring them down? Sure, the Dems have the right to disagree and protest and be general asses about the war in Iraq. No matter that their words and actions result in the deaths of our soldiers or the destroying of our reputation abroad - criticize, lie and generally make it impossible for policies to succeed. To the dems, as long as their protests put THEM in a good light (in their own minds), it’s okay. It’s hard for me to respect anyone who believes that the policies of the Democratic party are in line with what America is all about. It takes someone who is easily swayed by lofty sounding rhetoric.
There’s only one thing to say about last night’s debate: ZZZZzzzzzzzzz!
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