And with that ... a look back at last night’s YouTube Republican Presidential Debate ...
- I don’t think Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani should be invited to the same dinner party anytime soon. Or at least in this lifetime. The same goes for Mitt and John McCain. You could probably add the pairing of John McCain and Ron Paul in that category as well.
- When you have 30 seconds in front of millions of people to tell them how you can best lead the free world, and you launch an attack ad, what does that say about your priorities – Senator Thompson??
- I thought most of the questions were relevant and presented in a respectful fashion. Some were more clever than others. A few stand out in my mind – more for the ‘non-answers’ than the question themselves. I note that NONE of the candidates were willing to go on the record with listing three government programs that they were willing to cut. Interesting.
- I’ve been reading a few comments about the ‘Confederate Flag’ question and whether it was a worthwhile choice. I wouldn’t rank it above health care or education – but, as an exercise in deflection, it was interesting to hear Fred Thompson ‘hedge’ his answer by saying that it would be ‘acceptable’ in a public display with historic context. No, Senator, it wouldn’t. It’s a ‘historic’ symbol of hate and racism. Period.
- Between the petty sniping at opponents and the arrogant lecturing to viewers about past ‘accomplishments’, I rarely heard anyone say: “I will do this (fill in the blank)”. And they were all guilty of it, as were all of the Democrats two weeks ago. I do know that Ron Paul will remove our troops from Iraq. I do know that John McCain has promised to veto all legislation with pork barrel spending included. I suppose if I combed through the transcript, I might come up with one or two more “I will do this” type of statements. But they were few and far between. This mastery of what I call “Teflon answers” exasperates me more and more with each election cycle.
- This party is SO out of touch with the African-American community – it’s laughable – in a very sad, tragic way. Mitt Romney’s solution to black-on-black crime is to “restore family values” into those areas affected by this type of violence. (I noted that he specifically qualified “family” as "a mother and a father".) Great. Take everyone back to the “Leave it to Beaver” days – when Dad worked and Mom stayed at home to cook and clean and raise the kids – and black children attended segregated schools ... ah, yes ... the good old days ... COME ON ... this was the perfect opportunity to launch into anything substantive - perhaps into education reform and implementation of after-school, vocational and mentoring programs to help give young African-American men (and women) an option about what to do with their lives – other than resorting to violence and crime. I know ... dream on ...
- And yes – I’m tossing in my dos centavos about the ‘dust-up’ regarding General Keith Kerr. As one of the very astute AC360° Yahoo group members noted, General Kerr had just as much right as any one else to participate in last night’s debate by submitting a video. He asked a question about a national military policy. He wasn’t providing analysis, opinion or commentary – for or against any candidate. Frankly, I think that some of this “feigned outrage” has been promoted to (once again) deflect justified criticism of the overall poor performance of the candidates. I’d like to say that I doubt some of them could find their way out of a paper bag, except apparently all of them (sans McCain) can shoot their way out of a 12 foot thick cell block, if necessary!!
- While I’m at it - allow me to ask – what happened to professional courtesy among network colleagues? Within the same network? Did Campbell Brown really have to verbalize her ‘disappointment’ that certain topics weren’t covered? Probably not the best way to forge positive alliances with your new co-workers. And exactly when did Bill Bennett turn into a Faux News mouthpiece? Isn’t he under contract at CNN? What he did to Anderson Cooper on live TV was one of the most unprofessional sabotage moments I’ve ever witnessed. There was no reason to “toss out” the possibility that General Kerr may be ‘associated’ with the Clinton campaign – in the manner that he did it – other than for the purpose noted above. He should never be featured on another second of live TV at CNN.
- But I’d prefer to wrap this up on a more positive note ... this debate was handled much better that the previous Democratic Debate two weeks ago. Even though it involved Republican candidates, I could actually tolerate watching it! I think Anderson did a much better job of giving the ‘second-tier’ candidates more exposure, and I think that he kept better control of response time limits. Until the networks do what they should and start cutting off microphones, there will be always be motor mouths with no concept of an “honor system”. No matter who the moderator is.
- I was glad that Anderson did remind the candidates (subtly) that they should be respectful of those who took the time to submit questions, and answer the question. I was also glad to see that he put pressure on a few of the candidates when the questions weren’t getting direct answers, and had several follow-up questions as well.
- I hope that this type of debate format takes hold and that it may even be used when the field is narrowed down to just two candidates. Now that would be interesting to watch! And yes – because the blog is named “AC 360° Buzz” and I admit that I am ever-so-slightly biased – I’ll end by saying KUDOS (!!!!) to Anderson Cooper for a "job well done!!
