Presidential Debate

People love to make fun of politicians. They lie all the time, they never give straight answers, they use silly hand gestures, they care more about marketing themselves than anything of real substance. Well, the older I get, and the more political campaigns I follow, the more I realize that they don't have any choice, that's the only way to get elected to anything anymore. Of course, that's not news to anyone, but it just really struck me with this debate how much crap we're wrapped up in that no one should give a shit about.

I didn't watch the debate, but I did follow along in a couple different places on the internets*, and it was ridiculous. How are we ever supposed to fix any of the problems in this country when no one will let anyone focus on the problems because they're too busy talking about elitism and flag lapel pins? Honestly, if you care at all about whether a candidate wears a flag lapel pin, then there is something wrong with you. I mean like seriously wrong. Do you wear a flag lapel pin all the time? Somehow I doubt it. I certainly don't, and I don't know anyone who does. Yet people waste time caring about whether Obama does. If the Muslims ever do plant a secret agent into our society to someday run for President, as some people seem to be worried about, I can pretty much guarantee you that he will be wearing a flag lapel pin. That was a question from a regular person, you would think that the actual "journalists" would ask more important questions. But apparently they didn't.

About the only good thing I can say about this debate is that people actually seem to be upset about the bullshit questions that ABC decided to waste everyone's time on. Everyone at ABC News should be ashamed of themselves. And let's not forget the other debates which I don't think were all that much better. Tim Russert was especially bad.

And of course, it's easy to blame the media, but I've heard way more people in real life talking about the bullshit going on in this campaign than about any important things. The only way we'll get better out of our media and our candidates is to demand better. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening any time soon.

UPDATE: I was reading about the debate over at The Carpetbagger Report and I saw this:

At one point, Stephanopoulos asked Obama, “[D]o you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?” In fact, Stephanopoulos asked it twice.

Holy fucking shit. Is this serious? Have we actually gotten to a point where we're competing for the President of the United States and how much someone claims to love America is actually a factor? And of course, we're not even talking about how much the candidate loves America, we're talking about how much someone he knows loves America. I don't know or care how much Reverend Wright loves America. But if we're seriously asking, I know he loved it enough to join the military, which should tell people something. But since Reverend Wright isn't running for President, I'm not sure why his love for America is even up for debate.


* Luckily it didn't go down like in South Park which was hilarious.