Guess I can handle the antics of Curious George Stephanopoulos on the ABC Presidential debate last week; who ever thought him a serious journalist? The former Clintonite was always more unholy ambition than accredited reporter. So his appalling efforts to get back into the good graces of Bill and Hill were no big shocker, save for their transparency.
But Charles Gibson? Ugh. I was a fan, once. So his display of just how out-of-touch the media is with regular Americans lodged in my guts like a bad seafood enchilada with poisoned green onions: sat for five seconds and then, bringing on rumblings of epic proportion, was promptly regurgitated.
If you love me, you’ll call immediately and clue me in when most of the people I know actually give a crap about freaking lapel pins and William Ayers. When the burning question in all our minds concerns Reverend Wright and his relative hate or love for America. When what happened 20-40 years ago with some obscure someone or other who knew Obama actually matters more than how we’re going to continue feeding our kids since the cost of food has risen 82 percent in the past four years.
Newsflash, onscreen hairdos: We can’t afford these kinds of stupid questions. Literally. That’s so very 1990’s of you – back when Americans had disposable income and time to wax poetic on craptastic minutiae. You know, before you helped the corporations destroy our economy.
But, you know, apparently somewhere in Des Moines, these are the burning questions; I know, because Charles and George told me so last Wednesday night. After all, they had prime-time opportunity to ask the two Democratic candidates about what really matters, and we had the chance to learn about. . .lapel pins.
Freaking hell, what is the matter with the media? Are they really such big corporate shills that they’ve outlived any semblance of usefulness?
When questioned about his abominable performance leading the debate, Stepphie said that these things matter to America. Let’s find out more by going to the basic tenets of journalism: To whom does it matter? When? Where? And, finally, how? With a country concerned about our kids getting killed in Iraq, the economy, the cost of fuel, oil depletion, FISA, habeas corpus, executive overreach…we get a debate about non-issues. And atop that, you have the bleeding audacity to tell me that these things matter to us as a nation: which means you think we’re far more ignorant than we even thought you did.
Is it any wonder premium cable is kicking network ass?
Much has been written about this debacle of a debate. Much of it excoriates Gibson and Stephanapoulos, and rightly so. The nasty aftertaste just lingers.
Here, though, is an excerpt from my favorite postmortem, byBob Cesca at The HuffPo. He considers his outrage superfluous to that of a nation tired of being utterly misunderstood and misrepresented by a corporate media out of touch. Well, maybe. But it’s still freaking hilarious and much more illuminating and hard-hitting than that pitiful display of a “debate” last week on ABC:
We like to joke about the “very serious” traditional media. The truth is that while they claim exclusive lordship over integrity and professionalism — not to mention a corner on the world’s supply of pants made of smarty — they’re really a freak show with serious haircuts and suits. They’re a wing of the Republican corporatist conspiracy against America. And the very serious moderators of last night’s Democratic debate couldn’t have been less serious if they had been wearing clown suits made of dildos while simultaneously tickling each other with monkeys.
I don’t really even need to write this. The nation has witnessed, firsthand, George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson for who they really are: pandering yellow journalists. Carnival barkers. They’re Penn & Teller without the talent or insight.
To wit… 50 minutes without a single substantive question. Fifty.”
Clown suits made of dildos? At the very least, that would’ve been worth watching.
The single best comment arising from this debate-o-sham has left me in fits of laughter for the past five minutes, threatening to wake the rest of the house. So worth sharing:
“It would be “tough, fair, relevant, and appropriate” to subject George Stepfordwifeopolous to water-boarding, homelessness, post-traumatic stress disorder, Katrina-like flooding, and Abu Ghraib photo sessions in order to help him refocus on the issues that should be at the center of the national debate.”
Ah, probably just some ign’ant middle class, midwestern American who doesn’t wear a lapel pin. Personally, I think the entire “debate” can be summed by this excerpt from Obama’s The Audacity of Hope:
“What’s troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics — the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial.”
Quick, someone explain this to ABC.
