We
were promised that it would be an exiting, informal, town hall type
discussion. Yeah, sure it was. Now I’ll tell one. If this was a town
hall
meeting, ACORN is nothing more than a prop in Mrs. Ferguson’s
kindergarten
version of a Chicken Little play. The debate may have been a lot of
things, but
town hall it wasn’t. True, the setting looked a little more informal
with the
round stage format. And yes, we did actually see people in the audience
stand
up to ask questions. All window
dressing! Does Brokaw think we are a bunch of easily deceived
sheep? Oh wait! That's right! Obama is leading
in the polls right now.
These “informal, questions from the every day ordinary Joe” had to be
approved by Tom Brokaw. From the countless questions submitted, Brokaw whittled them down to 15,
the 15 he
liked coincidently. There’s
an old expression: “Give a monkey a typewriter and sooner or later he
will type
a word.” I.E. Give Tom Brokaw a pile of questions and sooner or later
he’ll
find the exact same ones he would have asked himself. But wait!
There’s more! After the question from the audience, Brokaw
followed it up with a question of his own. This means we were treated
to a
double feature; the submitted question Brokaw selected and the follow up question Brokaw created. Ironically, our
moderator referred to his creative
question as the “discussion time.” But when the candidates tried to have a
genuine discussion, by responding to each other in what could have been a good
back and forth ping pong match, Brokaw expressed grave concern that they were
violating the format by going over time. That they were, Tom. They certainly
were violating your
format, but it
begs the real problem and ignores the big elephant in the room: Was not
the
format itself the villain here? A genuine town hall meeting, the
kind McCain is known to excel in, the kind Obama was uncomfortable
with, and
the kind he repeatedly refused to participate in, never took place! Out
of
three debates, wasn’t McCain entitled to at least one format he liked?
And if
he was promised this format, should not the promise have been
delivered? In a real town hall meeting, (one without the
Brokaw oil filter), the audience might just come up with anything.
There is an
element of surprise. The candidates have to think quickly on their
feet. They
can not fall back on a handy, dandy text from Walla
Walla, Washington.
We see
the kind of stuff they are really made of. Did one single
question tonight surprise
either candidate? Was there anything they weren’t ready for? From
unlimited possibilities, Brokaw reduced
the subjects to three; the economy, foreign affairs and energy. Those
were the
exact same subjects as Debate One. Sure,
much has happened in the economy since then, but both candidates had
enough
time to think through canned answers for their “solution” to this
crisis. Controversial questions were omitted,
questions ranging from abortion, to infanticide (very relevant) to
Obama’s
association with shady friends, to observations from the ordinary
citizen of inconsistencies
or lies told along the tumultuous campaign trail. Since neither Brokaw,
nor NBC
News are too shy about their allegiance to Obama, we are once again
faced with
a sad situation in which it looks like the kinds of questions that
might have
embarrassed Obama (and they grow every day, as still another shoe drops)
were
conspicuously omitted. I guess Brokaw did not want to be known as
the moderator who presided over Obama's downfall, something which
may have happened had the name Bill Ayers been spewed forth from an audience member.
As I said in my blog about the Palin-Biden debate, the only telling time
is when the candidates can dialogue with each other, forcing their opponent to
truly answer a question they like to avoid. Such spontaneity can also be
generated from an unexpected audience question.
Neither happened this evening. It was not a town hall discussion and
McCain should insist that the next debate be exactly that.
Also by Bob Siegel:
Pinocchio Versus an Awakened Sleeping Beauty: Unpacking Thursday’s Debate
The Case For and Against Obama