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YouTube to Host Presidential Debate
skotte writes "Wired is reporting that July 23 at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, Anderson Cooper will host presidential debates in which debaters are asked 20-30 questions culled from a specially designated section of YouTube, where the voting populace can post questions directly. You and I (assuming you're American, probably) can ask questions ourselves, not just a reporter in a crowd. Candidates won't know which questions they are being asked, and the video selection process will remain a complete secret. Interesting, but also the slightest bit scary."
0b4m4, u r like totally teh r0x0r! U r in my computerz stealing my votez!!
Ok, video is new, but this has been done before with more traditional formats. We've seen questions from the audience - sometimes even live - to presidential candidates before. The problem has always been not the questions, but the answers. Ask any question you want, but there is no way to compel the candidate to really answer it. Most don't.
What they do is speak about the topic with prepared mini-speeches...
Voter: Sir, does the right to free speech mean I can burn a flag?
Candidated: Let me tell you, I stand second to none in my love for the flag or this great country that it stands for. That flag represents all the people who have risked their lives and died to save her...
And after ten minutes of posturing and spouting non-sequiturs, he still will not have said yes or no. But for some reason, most people do not seem to notice the fact.
What we need is not a new way of asking questions, but a new way of getting answers.
I personally favor the rack.
You voted in favor of the Iraq war. If you can be mislead by a bungling fool like George Bush, how can we trust you as President to deal with world leaders who are actually intelligent?
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.
It'll just end up getting reposted with some god awful hip-hop soundtrack and clips from Halo.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I hope they don't allow Ron Paul on this. Ron Paul would be a disaster for socialism, internationalism, and government sponsored murder and tyranny in this nation and around the world. We cannot allow this man to speak. He is a terrorist.
"Senator Obama, which do you prefer? Anarchy, Socialism, Communism or CowboyNealism?
During the Rep. debate that just occurred, but was also annoying was that the candidates were not self-policing their own timers, as well as talking over the moderator who wanted to interrupt them. This makes both the moderator and the candidates look like amateurs. Perhaps the idea is to shut off their microphones when they run out of time.
Please people, get your point across, and do it in a timely manner.
Can I ask mine while wearying a Guy Fawkes mask?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Has anyone read the comments on YouTube? I've never seen a more putrid cesspool of thoughtless idiocy. Why does anyone expect the questions for the candidates from the community to be any better in quality than the comments?
Stephen Colbert would make an interesting host
Peace sells, but who's buying?
The Politico, a right-wing news site, ran this same scam ahead of one of the GOP debates a few months back. They held a contest to have the most popular question submitted be asked during the debate they were sponsoring.
This questions topped the heap at the end of the contest.
* Should the President have power to imprison U.S. citizens without charging them with a crime and without providing them a judicial forum in which they can contest the accusations against them, as the Bush administration did to American Jose Padilla?
* Do you think the process of waterboarding -- where the U.S. takes prisoners, straps them to a chair, and pours water on their face so they are in terror of drowning to death -- is a practice consistent with America's moral credibility in the world?
* A recent worldwide poll showed that under the Bush presidency, America has become the third most unpopular country in the world -- right behind Iran and just ahead of North Korea. Why do you believe that has that happened?
The winner never got asked, nor any of the other top vote-getting questions. Instead we had them asking inane questions about whether the candidates believed in evolution and a bunch of cheap shots at Bill Clinton.