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Real Presidential Debates
slithytove writes "As many of us are aware, the presidential debates are currently controlled by an organization called the Commision on Presidential Debates. As anyone who's seen a presidential debate recently could guess, the CPD does just what our two major parties want: exclude third parties and impose rules that make the event more of a joint press conference than a debate. Non-establishment candidates Michael Badnarik and David Cobb will be having an actual debate this Thursday. After debating each other, they will be rebutting the points Bush and Kerry make in their pseudo-debate. Free Market News will be streaming it and providing a download afterwards."
Been mindlessly absorbing some right-wing propaganda, have we?
I, for one, don't want to see two people who have no chance of becoming president gumming up the debate between to people that do.
I would rather see Bush and Kerry's smartest advisor's debate than two people of no consequence getting in the way of helping analyze the real cantidates.
"Sig free in '03!"
when I say Who gives a Fuck?. If you decide your vote based on these debates you're a moron. Look long term at each of the candidates trends. Who cares if it's only a 2 party system, see the previous point.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
awesome, parent is flamebait, but the grandparent post is insightful - What is the CBS?
Getting there.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
"Still, I'll watch, if only in the hopes that Bush will stumble badly over a fact or two."
Would it really matter. Bush has said 10 times in various forums that Abu Nidal Killed Leon Klinghoffer when it was really Abu Abbas. Have you heard anybody in the press ask him about it? Have seen anybody in the democratic party hold his feet to the fire on it? Why hasn't cheney or rove corrected him after the first five times he told that lie? How come he does not know who he is fighting?
Apparently nobody cares when Bush says something stupid, makes a gaffe, out and out lie or get some facts wrong.
evil is as evil does
Thanks for that, Karl Rove. Please back that assertion up with facts. Because it sure seems to anyone who's actually paying attention that there's a huge disparity between Bush and Kerry. Let me list just a few of the differences that I've observed.
Kerry actually mentioned science in his DNC acceptence speech. Kerry actually mentioned his web site in his DNC acceptence speech. Kerry actually saved the lives of several people in Vietnam and afterwards. Kerry is a documented war hero. Everyone who was actually there at the time says so. (Lots of people who weren't there and just happen to be funded by wealthy Republicans from Texas claim otherwise.)
Meanwhile Bush's favorite philosopher is Jesus, which is fair enough. Lots of Christians love Jesus. But Bush can't name anything Jesus ever said, let alone abide by His word. Still, Jesus is a good name-drop sop to the sacreligious right for him, so he'll continue to use that line.
Bush has never saved anyone's life. Bush started a preemptive war that has so far resulted in over 1000 American deaths and at least ten times that number of Iraqi deaths -- including innocent women and children.
Come on, man, pick up the beat. Kerry is much superior to Bush. Don't listen to the right-wing talking heads. Think for yourself.
Maybe if third party supporters didn't say things like:
"roundly shut out by the ruling oligarchy"
they could garner enough respect to be invited to the next 'official' debates? People aren't going to respect you as a third party if you're openly hostile to the entire system.
Comment of the year
Undemocratic? The USA is a republic, not a democracy. Wake up and smell the inevitability, Mr. Anderson. Presidential elections have nothing at all to do with democracy. Your representatives decide, you don't. It's designed that way, and it wasn't an accident. If you want to change it, it'll take more than getting the greens or the libertarians to field a candidate. The system is broken.
Imagine, just for a moment, that a libertarian manages to get elected as president (extremely unlikely, of course, but bear with me... please imagine an undetectable voting machine malfunction in the electoral college.) Of course, this new president has a democratic/republican congress. Exactly how much do you think he or she could get accomplished?
I'll tell you. The answer is zero because your "representatives" control everything as a small group of highly priviledged individuals with amazing perks, security and almost complete lack of accountability. Not you. And not the president, either. The president has precisely one area in which the officeholder is allowed some freedom of action: Foreign policy. Mind you, congress controls the funding, so it turns out this is mostly illusory, but he can at least talk to other country's ambassadors, if only to complain how unable he is to do anything. For good or ill, that's the way it is.
Now, repeat after me:
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.