Clinton Beats Blitzer in CNN Debate

posted by John Nichols on 06/04/2007 @ 12:04am

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Maybe the Democratic presidential candidates should rethink their decision not to debate on the Fox New Channel. It couldn't be worse than the theater of the absurd CNN organized Sunday night at New Hampshire's St. Anselm College – which, it should be noted, was co-sponsored by an even more aggressively conservative media outlet than Fox: the rabidly right-wing Manchester Union-Leader newspaper.

The second major debate between the eight Democrats who would be president broke little new ground. In fairness, that wasn't CNN's fault. It's still too early for the candidates to stray from their talking points; that won't happen until the desperate days of the late fall and early winter when contenders who recognize that the keys to the Oval Office are slipping from their grasp decide to go for broke.

So Sunday's debate was, for the most part, a dull dance.

Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards repeated appropriate criticisms of his fellow frontrunners, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama, for failing to take a leadership role in opposing the war in Iraq – while Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd tried to get some attention for the fact that they actually been outspoken in their opposition to giving President Bush another blank check to pursue his war of whim.

The former First Lady said she'd make "dear husband" Bill some sort of roving ambassador, and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel said they'd do the same. While the other candidates made vague promises that they won't even try to keep regarding what they'd do in their first 100 days in office, Dodd stood out by saying he would use his first day to renew and restore basic liberties that have been undermined by George Bush's presidential edicts, decrees and secret schemes. Richardson was equally impressive when he suggested – correctly – that a U.S. threat to boycott the 2008 Beijing Olympics could play a vital role in ending the genocide in Darfur.

Unfortunately, Dodd did not get a chance to speak in anything more than the shortest sound bite about resurrecting the Constitution. And Richardson never got to explain that, because of China's trade links with the Sudanese government, and because of Beijing's obsession with making next year's Olympics a success, the threat of a U.S. boycott of the games could be dramatically more effective than most such gambits.

Despite the fact that this was a two-hour debate, moderator Wolf Blitzer acted throughout the night as if he was hosting "Beat the Clock." Of course, a moderator must keep a crowded field under control. But the candidates weren't the ones who were off the leash. Rather, it was the CNN anchor who repeatedly interrupted contenders who were trying to explain the basics of their positions, cut off thoughful answers in mid-sentence and failed to follow up when significant points of difference – on issues such as trade policy – were thrown into the mix.

Worst of all, Blitzer tried to take complex issues and reduce them to show-of-hand stunts.

At one point, Blitzer tossed a wild hypothetical at the candidates: If they knew where Osama bin Laden would be for 20 minutes, would they move to eliminate him even if that meant killing "innocent civilians"? Blitzer's question raised fundamental questions: What do we mean by innocent civilians? Are we talking about children? How many would die? Could bin Laden be captured? Would taking him out compromise a flow of intelligence that might provide information that could prevent future attacks on Americans?

Kucinich tried to explore subtleties of international law and common sense, but Blitzer shut him down. Instead of a nuanced discussion on how the U.S. might operate in a post-Bush world, Blitzer simply demanded that candidates raise their hands if they were for getting bin Laden.

Moments later, after Delaware Senator Joe Biden suggested using military force to end the genocide in Darfur, Blitzer was again calling for a show of hands.

No room for a discussion about what sort of force – a no-fly zone or troops on the ground, an international coalition or a U.S.-led expedition, a full-fledged attack on another Muslim state or peacekeeping in the desert – just hands in the air by candidates who were for marching on Africa.

Blitzer was determined to race past anything akin to a serious discussion. And through most of the night, he got away with it.

Finally, as the moderator pressed his "who's-against-genocide" show and tell, Clinton called him on his antics. While the other candidates grumbled about the host's absurdly overbearing approach, the New York senator pointedly declared, "We're not going to engage in these hypotheticals. I mean one of the jobs of a president is being very reasoned in approaching these issues. And I don't think it's useful to be talking in these kinds of abstract hypothetical terms."

She got a deserved round of applause from a crowd that was as annoyed as the candidates were with Blitzer.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

John Nichols' new book is THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson hails it as a "nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the 'heroic medicine' that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to 'reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.'"

Comments (52)

A couple of quick things:

One, time limits absolutely have to exist in a debate, and have to be kept relatively constant in order for fair debate to happen. Nichols' criticism of candidates getting cut off though they had a great deal to say thus seems a little problematic.

Second, Nichols is wrong about Richardson; boycotting the Beijing Olympics is stupid. It's not as though this bold, daring "strategy" hasn't been attempted before; Carter took the bold step of boycotting the Olympics when the Soviet Union shockingly chose to be aggressive rather than the peaceful, human-rights-loving entity that it had clearly been up to that point. The problem with this strategy is that even if a good Olympics matters to China, it won't matter nearly enough to make them compromise the economic ties they have with the Sudanese government. Why the US' opinion would suddenly, though it hasn't before, shake them enough to make them abandon their Sudanese business partners is beyond me. If anything, boycotting the Beijing Olympics is an excuse not to take real action.

Posted by Thrawn at 06/04/2007 @ 12:32am
NICHOLS: Richardson......the threat of a U.S. boycott of the games could be dramatically more effective than most such gambits.

One of the stupidest international "gambit" I can imagine! I'm sorry this came from Richardson......showed naivete to China's enormous sense of nationalistic pride!!! What was China's reaction to Tiannemon? Didn't give a shit, did it???? Does anybody remember the US spy plane incident following the accidental bombing of China's Embassy in Kosovo?

NO US participation in 2008 will just mean many, many more medals for the Home Team and buttress China's standing for not being US's "poodle"! Scratch Richardson off!

Posted by Happy at 06/04/2007 @ 12:56am
Posted by THRAWN 06/04/2007 @ 12:32am

Hi, there! By the time I read Nichol's piece and posted my comments, you had already hit my main point! I SECOND!

Posted by Happy at 06/04/2007 @ 12:58am
I'll admit, I haven't watched the entire debate (catching up, now) but I disagree with some of what the previous commenter wrote. Yes, time limits are important, but Blitzer cut off candidates, seemingly arbitrarily, especially those candidates considered by the mainstream press as long shots. Kucinich, Richardson and Gravel were repeatedly interrupted, as were the others. If you tell candidates it's a "free form" debate but interrupt them at whim, they're not able to formulate their answers. If you impose time limits, candidates know how long they have to answer.

As far as China and the Olympics go, 2008 is not 1976. Cable TV, the Internet and all that comes with them (ESPN, sponsorships, bloggers, etc.) has made the Olympics a MUCH bigger event, economically, than they were 31 years ago. Don't be mistaken, the 1976 boycott hurt the USSR financially. However, it's much easier for people to travel to China now, than it was to go to the USSR in 1976 and a US boycott would most definitely harm China economically. However, I don't think anyone suggested we use a boycott as the only method to stop the genocide in Darfur, but it's certainly a viable part of a complete plan.

Posted by RabbiReport at 06/04/2007 @ 01:07am
To respond to commenters 2 and 3 (I was responding to #1), I would hope that Bill Richardson meant that a boycott would mean an economic injury to China, not a PR hit.

Posted by RabbiReport at 06/04/2007 @ 01:09am
Doesn't surprise me in the least bit that Blitzer repeatedly interrupted Kucinich, Richardson and Gravel. As noted by RABBIREPORT, they're considered long shots by the mainstream media...and as the long shots are usually the most intelligent / make the most sense, Blitzer does his best to make sure they don't have enough time to get their messages across. Blitzer wants to continue being one of the well paid "poodles" of mainstream media.

Posted by Joe Q. at 06/04/2007 @ 05:21am
As a former resident of NH, I can tell you that the characterization of the Union Leader as "rabidly right-wing" is outdated. Back in the days of Bill Loeb, there's no question it was the paper equivalent of Fox News, best known for ending the Muskie campaign in 1972. However, following the death of Bill, the paper's ownership passed to his wife, Nacky, and mostly confined its editorializing to the editorial page.

When Nacky Loeb died, the former editor-in-chief Joe McQuaid took over, and his editorial policy suggests a much more moderate brand of fiscal conservatism. The paper has even been known to support moderate Democrats on occasion for local office. In other words, 15 years ago calling the Union Leader "rabidly right-wing" would have been accurate, but nowadays it isn't.

Posted by Ohioan at 06/04/2007 @ 07:22am
WAS that a "hypothetical"?

I thought we HAD a chance back in 2001 (I think) to take out bin Laden in Afghanistan, while he was in a village.

So..."WOULD (you) as President drop the Tomahawks to take him out, if it meant civilian casualties?" actually happened....Bush blew it, isn't it fair to ask the Dems if they would too?

Posted by Mask at 06/04/2007 @ 07:25am
More support for the Communists from the neo-cons.

What ever happened to the Global War Against communism? Cheap labor.

Hell, even genocide is not enough to get the clowns riled up, keep that cheap crap coming!!!

Watch out! Chavez is doing something bad, he must be stopped, but encourage China .

Zero shame.

Posted by crabwalk at 06/04/2007 @ 08:10am
Crabby

I think you misunderstand. Most logical thinking people understand that boycotting the Olympics won't accomplish anything except cheat our athletes out of something they have spent their whole lives striving for. Aaaand that's all.

And, um, yeah, Chavez is doing something bad. It's a shame you don't see it.

Posted by usc1 at 06/04/2007 @ 08:37am
What the fucck is the GDP? 0.6%??? Revised down from 1.2%? It was at first supposed to be 1.8%? Should we believe it's 0.6? Don't worry about Iraq the Bush Treasury guy says, because it's only 1% of GDP. Just go back and add 1.0 to every GDP figure we've had since 2002, add 1.0 or 2.0 for ten years of Vietnam, and we'd be in great shape.

War = Rape the Treasury

Conservative = Loot the Treasury

Put them together and what do you get? The Raping and Looting of hard working Americans.

Posted by conshame at 06/04/2007 @ 09:00am
Americans work hard, and these fuccking lying war mongering Conservative pieces of shhit steal our money and waste it in wars.

The tax money is not going to free lunches for lazy people who dont want to work, the tax money is paying for wars that make America less safe.

Conservatives had their moment to cut taxes, Conservatives had their chance, THEY DID NOT LEAD, WE WILL.

Posted by conshame at 06/04/2007 @ 09:03am
I have a problem with boycotting the Olympics. What of the athletes that have put in countless hours of training and sacrifice to make it to the Games. Yes, Darfur deserves a much needed solution, but using athletes as pawns to settle this matter defeats the meaning behind the Olympics. Athletes want to compete and represent their country. Beijing, won't hurt that much. The rest of world will be there, whether the US shows or not. Boycotting Beijing, still is very far from directly addressing the blight in Darfur.

Posted by Si3nal at 06/04/2007 @ 09:51am
Sorry USC1, didn't see your post. Would have just said, DITTO, in stead of post the previous.

Posted by Si3nal at 06/04/2007 @ 09:54am
Watch out! Chavez is doing something bad, he must be stopped, but encourage China .

Posted by CRABWALK 06/04/2007 @ 08:10am

CRAB, can we assume that you don't take the OPPOSITE view....that because China is bad...we IGNORE Chavez shuttind down opposition media?

Posted by Mask at 06/04/2007 @ 09:58am
Hmmm...lotta "blanks"...guess RESE upto his latest 50 endless run-on sentence C&Ps from www.indymedia.org/thevaticanownsMtRushmore/html.... or jewscontrolyourmind.org's latest on how "Israelis killed Lincoln 60 years before Balfour because he opposed Zionism" or whatever.

Posted by Mask at 06/04/2007 @ 10:20am
No, I say pay attention to Chavez. But, the neo-cons make him out to be the Great Anti Christ socialist, while cheerleading for the largest socialist/communist country in the world. Every day we get to read about how Chavez is going to bring down the world, meanwhile China is doing business with Sudan, Iran, Burma, Nigeria etc, while undervaluing their currency and occupying countries that want to be independent.

Seriously, what is it about the communist Chinese that you neo con supposed patriots find so appealing?

If the olympics were still an amateur thing I may feel different. Can anyone deny that our boycotting of the 80 olympics lessoned the importance of that event? Isn't "sending signals" Chimpies big idea? How many of you support holding an Olympics in Darfur?

Posted by crabwalk at 06/04/2007 @ 11:26am
PS, out of all the posters here, I am willing to bet I am the only one that has spent time training at the USOC.

1985. indoor small-bore shooting. I shared a cafeteria with the Cuban women's field team. BIG women. Big eaters.

Posted by crabwalk at 06/04/2007 @ 11:29am
As i think and understand USA1's philosophy, having a few hundred compete in sporting events is more important to him than punishing China for its collaboration with a government that is committing genocide.

which is pretty darn ironic considering our invasion of Iraq in order to stop genocide that happened years earlier. An invasion USA1 supports.

Posted by crabwalk at 06/04/2007 @ 11:32am
Just so you all "get it", Ronald Reagan allowed the Cuban women's field team to come to our country and use our facilities to train, while Cuba was under embargo.

Countries that joined our boycott of the 1980 games, Japan, West Germany, China and Canada. via wiki.

Posted by crabwalk at 06/04/2007 @ 11:49am
There are good points presented by Mr. Nichols - my impression was quite similar to his.

The first thing that jumped out at me was how the podium positioning looked 'tiered'. If like some wide-screen movie broadcasts are 'letter-boxed' this could have been also, then you would see all the candidates at once, but, instead the square and center of the TV focus concentrated on those so-called 1st Tier candidates. They [Clintor, Obama, Edwards] were permitted to rejoin more frequently and ramble more freely and not cut-off as often as the others.

It would be interesting to actually tabulate the total talk-time for each and see if that impression is actually true or not.

The post-debate analy-spin was just horrible by CNN. The only somewhat interesting part was the actual candidate interviews - excluding the 'how do you think you did' questions - a dumb question. Otherwise, it was all a glossy '1st Tier' reinforcement fest of dumbed-down sound-bite posturing. How tiresome!

Bottom line:

Don't rock the corporate imperial boat tier- Clinton, Obama and to a lesser degree Edwards.

More interesting let's drop our pretensions and try to do things better tier- Gravel, Kucinich, Biden, Richardson.

Smart guy but almost totally shutout tier - Dodd.

Just pay attention we've got it all figured out for you already tier- CNN.

Posted by RadioD at 06/04/2007 @ 11:53am
C'mon, John you going to blam a 10 ring circus on the moderator? You think we would have gotten any more relavent information on their positions in Bltizer hadn't been there. Let's see, Hillary blasted Bush, B.O. claimed the high ground on Irag, Kucinich played George McGovern with his plan for a utopian world, etc etc ad nauseum. It was theatre of the absurd, all right, although not for the reasons you suggest

Posted by CHIP THORNTON at 06/04/2007 @ 12:06pm
Countries that joined our boycott of the 1980 games, Japan, West Germany, China and Canada. via wiki.

Posted by CRABWALK 06/04/2007 @ 11:49am

Actually, that's really problematic for you because it undercuts your argument. Despite the fact that 4 significant countries besides ourselves boycotted the Olympics, the USSR didn't really care and certainly didn't alter their policy in the least. What we're talking about now is a boycott that would almost certainly be only the United States, because the kind of tension that existed around the time of the Cold War that could line other countries up behind us against the USSR doesn't exist in the status quo. Because many other countries don't have that, they're not likely to opt out. Even if they did, moreover, you've still never answered how that financial loss would outweigh that huge financial interest that China has in the Sudanese government. Boycotting the Olympics has never been a meaningful foreign policy, and it won't be now; if anything, as I argued before, it's a substitute for real action.

Posted by Thrawn at 06/04/2007 @ 12:08pm
Pathetic. Mr Nichols is reaching to give the, apparently newly lifted face, of the old Republican Clinton, a desperate but undeserved thumbs up. Goes with the expectation that the Nation, will, despite posturing and threats, predictably capitulate and line up with the usual ABB-style warnings, regardless of the fact that supporting the Democrats has never actually thrown any obstatcles in the Right's path up to and including their last looting of the treasury for blood money. Yessiree, could Nichols be setting up the leap onto Hillary's corporate-driven bandwagon and buying into that manufactured consensus of popular perception--no matter how many times the marginalized Kucinich reveals her rank hypocrisy. Why the hell would any woman feel pride in Hillary's rise to power, since she depends on her dear husband to open the door for her and then promotes herself as a contender by emulating the worst aspects of arrogant machismo and brutality as the winning formula that defines strength? That brand of ignorant bullying is offensive in men, so why would it be an asset to a woman? No, Nichols didn't seem it was worth mentioning that Hillary defended the war on terror, against Edwards suggestion that it was little more than a "bumpersticker" shattering the construction. Or that ms Clinton claimed we were now safer...

Pretty damn pathetic, Mr Nichols.

Posted by rdel at 06/04/2007 @ 12:15pm
Crabby

Thrawn pretty much took care of your arguments for me. Essentially, boycotting the Olympics won't do much except punish our athletes...something you should have learned after the 80 Olympics.

I actually had a good laugh during the debate listening to everyone talk about "tougher sanctions" and "no fly zones" against Sudan but never mention that it was in fact the Chinese that took the teeth out of the current sanctions. As long as they are on the Security Council with a powerful veto, there isn't much that we can do about it...unless you deal with China directly and forcefully. I got the feeling that everyone just wanted to agree with Richardson (I think he mentioned the Olympics first) to make it seem like something would be done. But you have to admit, boycotting the Olympics is a pretty puny step.

Posted by usc1 at 06/04/2007 @ 1:14pm
Posted by CRABWALK 06/04/2007 @ 11:26am

Okay, just checking (on Chavez).

I've seen some left-wing bloggers actually DEFENDING Hermano Hugo shutting down the oppposition media (RCTV).

Posted by Mask at 06/04/2007 @ 1:19pm
This account of the debate--while certainly on target and relevant--erases Obama's role in calling Blitzer on the absurdity of his less than sophomoric "show of hands" questions. It was Obama that first insisted on the ridiculousness of the question, and it was on this courage to call Blitzer out that Clinton later insisted on not engaging hypotheticals.

Posted by anarkissed at 06/04/2007 @ 1:53pm
Posted by HAPPY 06/04/2007 @ 12:58am

Hasn't Snow White found you YET?

Posted by RESE 06/04/2007 @ 08:20am

(Et al.) Rese's pieces.

Posted by w_m_bear at 06/04/2007 @ 2:04pm
Posted by MASK 06/04/2007 @ 1:19pm

It's not some "left-wing bloggers". It is also sources such as FAIR.

"In keeping with the media script that has bad guy Chávez brutishly silencing good guys in the democratic opposition, all these articles skimmed lightly over RCTV's history, the Venezuelan government's explanation for the license denial and the process that led to it....RCTV and other commercial TV stations were key players in the April 2002 coup that briefly ousted Chávez's democratically elected government. During the short-lived insurrection, coup leaders took to commercial TV airwaves to thank the networks. "I must thank Venevisión and RCTV," one grateful leader remarked in an appearance captured in the Irish film The Revolution Will Not Be Televised."

Apparently, opposition media making it possible for coups to occur is a good use of government licenses. Don't let the facts get in the way of the Chavez bashing.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3107

Posted by srjenkins at 06/04/2007 @ 2:06pm
Forget this early "Let's Make a Deal" unreality TV shit or even who'd you'd LIKE to see become Pres. in 2009 (presumably Anybody But Bush). Who would you most like to see slug it out in the final "Great Debates" in the fall of 2008? Pick one from A and one from B.

A Hillary Clinton Barak Obama John Edwards

vrs.

B John McCain Rudy Giuliani Mitt Romney

Personally, I think a Hillary-McCain verbal slugfest might be worth my nickle just for the sheer entertainment value, whoever moderates. (Most boring -- Edwards-Romney?)

Posted by w_m_bear at 06/04/2007 @ 2:14pm
Posted by SRJENKINS 06/04/2007 @ 2:06pm

Sure makes it convenient for Sr. Chavez, doesn't it? Shutting down opposition media because of an coup attempt....

sort of like a President using a terrorist attack to take away our civil liberties or go into countries that never attacked us.

Posted by Mask at 06/04/2007 @ 2:27pm
To CRABWALK - for your evaluation about RCTV - articles at both of these sites. The disgrutled old guard power elite loved RCTV, the Chavistas apparently won't miss it - just depends on where one starts out thinking about it.

http://www.zmag.org/recent_featured__links.cfm

http://www.handsoffvenezuela.org/

Could be while thinking that one over one could also wonder why there was such a xenophobic reaction here to letting Aljazeera [English] occupy some space on our cable networks.

Posted by RadioD at 06/04/2007 @ 2:42pm
2 simple (yet easy to dodge) questions for the Chavez apologists...

1. If (one example) Fernando Romeo Lucas García, democratically elected President of Guatemala in 1978 (just to keep it fair), had shut down LEFT-wing media outlets due to threats that they would plan a coup against him.....

what would you say? Support it, would you?

2. If it's not about oppression of opposition and silencing them in the media, then obviously there is a NON-State-run and controlled TV outlet that President Chavez' critics will be able to go on and air their greviances openly and freely....uh....right???

Posted by Mask at 06/04/2007 @ 2:52pm
Glad to see somebody call Wolf Blitzer on his sophmoric hosting. Audience members would ask deep questions (e.g., how do we reconcile support for Musharef with our democratic values?) and Blitzer would come out with a fantasy scenario (e.g., bombing Osama in 20 minutes). Usually, it's the politicians who insult our intelligence by dodging a tough question. Blitzer insults our intelligence and, in fact, undermines our democracy by stifling meaningful discussion and playing the quiz show ratings game. Nichols is right: it was absurd. I kept waiting for one of the participants to ask for a lifeline.

Posted by littlebird at 06/04/2007 @ 4:10pm
Hasn't Snow White found you YET?

Posted by RESE 06/04/2007 @ 08:20am

(Et al.) Rese's pieces.

Posted by W_M_BEAR 06/04/2007 @ 2:04pm

Are you lonely, RESE?

Hey MASK, toss RESE some table scrap!

Oh, Snow White is my HAPPY pill, "Don't blog without it!"

Posted by Happy at 06/04/2007 @ 4:25pm
I did not see the debate but when people like Wolf Blitzer and Chris Mathews, who act more like narcistic celebrities than thoughtful journalists, are the moderators, the whole thing becomes a freak show.

Posted by kevin99999 at 06/04/2007 @ 5:15pm
Posted by MASK 06/04/2007 @ 2:52pm

...had shut down LEFT-wing media outlets due to threats that they would plan a coup against him.....

One obvious difference is that this is not a threat of a coup. The coup actually occured. Afterwards, the station continued, but it's license was not renewed a few years later.

I simply think it is more than merely a free speech issue. This is not to say that criticisms cannot be brought to bear. They can.

I also liked the point RADIOD made regarding Al Jazeera is being blocked from distribution in the U.S. - what does that say about OUR media? Which media source can The Nation's subscribers turn to to hear Fox New's style analysis for the Left?

As for your second point, you know something that isn't indicated by the long lists of private ownership in the follow link. Seems to me like there are a lot of private options. Love to hear if you have additional information to share.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_of_Venezuela

Posted by srjenkins at 06/04/2007 @ 5:46pm
Yes, Nichols is correct, that the so-called debate was a dissembling joke --- and it was planned to be such.

This corporate televised ‘debate', just like the corporate televised Sunday morning talking-heads shows, was overwhelmingly supportive and neutered in line with the demands of the global corporate Empire which runs this facade of "Vichy America" in order to utilize the military super-power of the US to keep its global corporate oily Ponzi scheme running for a few more years by fooling and disempowering the entire US population of their real democracy.

Heck of a job, Empire. The con is still working fine. The rubes have not caught on to the 'three card Monte' of phony two-party deceit yet!!

None of the Democrat imperial capitalist candidates broke rank, except Kucinich and Gravel, and, of course, the corporate MSM is totally ignoring and discounting them --- exactly as planned.

As I've long said, " The very most important question that the American people should be asking any candidate for president in '08 is not, "Where do you stand on the war?", but, "Where do you stand on the EMPIRE that has taken over our country --- an Empire of which the war in Iraq is only its biggest and most visible crime ----- so far?"

Since the real principled, intellectual, and working class antiwar movement is now quickly broadening into an anti-Empire movement (because of the obvious fact that the guileful corporate Empire is the cause of war), the effect of this combined antiwar and anti-Empire movement may, quite predictably, cause the few serious and honest presidential candidates (Kucinich, Gravel, Paul, and in the near future Gore and Nader as Greens) to blow open this phony corporate debate facade, and blow open the general public's mind, to the 'hidden 5000 lb. elephant in the kitchen' --- that our country now has a massive cancerous tumor of global corporate Empire, which has taken over our former democracy and must be surgically excised as the tumor that it is, if we are to save our body politic.

The working class American population has recently become aware (despite the MSM's efforts to hide it) that committed antiwar leaders as different as the emotional, compassionate, and heart driven Cindy Sheehan, and the intellectual, objective, and policy driven expert Andrew Bacevich, have (as parents of kids killed by this Empire) reached exactly the same public conclusion about the totally corrupt and lying two-party corporate con-game going on in "Vichy America" --- that the Iraq war was and is an imperialist war for global domination and oil that the power-elite global corporate Empire has lied us into, and covered up with its phony two-party scam and corporate controlled MSM dissemblers.

The cat is coming out of the bag. The lid is coming off Pandora's box. And all the lying and dissembling of the MSM and these phony debates are not going to keep the American public from knowing the truth before the '08 election. Democracy will rise again!

Posted by amacd at 06/04/2007 @ 10:31pm
My God. Someone has finally discovered the true secret to the workings of American government. We're not a republic...we're an Empire!! (Cue Imperial March) The Emperor must be stopped! Where have all the Skywalkers gone???

Posted by Thrawn at 06/04/2007 @ 11:32pm
Blitzer, Matthews and Scarborough all do the same thing. They ask a person a question and then cut in apparently to show how much they know about the subject. If they want to display their own knowledge, then why ask the question in the first place?

Posted by buzzard72 at 06/05/2007 @ 01:18am
It's breathtaking how many contributors to this thread know exactly how the Chinese government will react to a US boycott of the 2008 Olympics -- without a shred of evidence to support their conviction!

For my part, I have no idea whether this boycott would be a good idea or a bad idea. I do believe we should have conditional rather than unconditional trade agreements with China, and that the Congress should review the human-rights situation in China on a regular basis and alter these trade agreements accordingly.

"What was China's reaction to Tiannemon? Didn't give a shit, did it????" asked "Happy."

Mr. Happy, I remember perfectly China's reaction to the demonstrators on Tiananmen Square -- swift and violent. The question is: What was OUR reaction? Within 10 years, we granted the commanders of the Tiananmen massacre "most favored nation" status in all but name. And our policy has not changed.

As for Wolf Blitzer's tactics at the debate, let's not try to substitute quantitative terms for qualitative ones. He was bad not because his hand was "too heavy" or "too light," or because he interrupted too often or not enough. He was bad because his questions were so jaw-droppingly stupid, revealing that Mr. Blitzer still believes in an Iraq-Osama axis and in even more ludicrous hypothetical scenarios. So just how would we ever discover where Bin Laden would be during the next 20 minutes, with absolute certainty?

And, frankly, quite a lot of civilians -- hundreds of thousands -- have already been slaughtered in a war that originally was sold as part of the hunt for Bin Laden. Maybe war isn't the way to do this. Would we ever have arrested the UNA-bomber if our strategy had been to bomb the cities of California? No, I think if we had done that, Mr. Kaczinski would still be at large, and we'd have an intractable anti-US insurgency in California, and perhaps a civil war as well -- just as we do in Iraq.

What we need to get Bin Laden is somebody who can think outside the proverbial box. It's a shame that Wolf Blitzer has superglued his fanny to it and barks at any Presidential candidate who tries to leave it.

Posted by JakobFabian at 06/05/2007 @ 08:26am
Posted by SRJENKINS 06/04/2007 @ 5:46pm

SRJ, a prediction....Chavez will eventually go so far, that even his American apologists will be embaressed. It's inevitable. Eventually "maintaining the Revolution" has always led to a crack-down on freedoms and civil liberties.

And that's if you're a Lenin or Castro with "outside imperialist capitalist agitators"....or a Bush "protecting us from terrorists" by spying on us and removing habeus corpus.

Oddly, I oppose BOTH sides' attempts at crushing liberties....wish everybody did.

Posted by Mask at 06/05/2007 @ 09:59am
Posted by MASK 06/05/2007 @ 09:59am

Like I've said before, I don't like authoritarian governments of any stripe. I just don't think the discussion is fair on this point. Also, I thought I would bring this article to your attention. It is informative.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=45&ItemID=12986

Posted by srjenkins at 06/05/2007 @ 10:10am
Blitzer is second tier, just above the fox talking heads. I guess cnn hired him early on when they could't get anyone else and he and a few others are still hanging on. As a political interviewer and debate moderator his ineptness really shows him up as a third-rater. He should stick to reading news, about the level of the babes cnn also employs (excluding Christine Amanpour who remains cnn's only real reporter).

Posted by gore4pres at 06/05/2007 @ 11:09am
blitzer is not a real reporter. He2s a holdover talking head who needs a script and a control room to feed him questions.

Posted by gore4pres at 06/05/2007 @ 11:11am
We're not a republic...we're an Empire!! (Cue Imperial March) Posted by THRAWN 06/04/2007 @ 11:32pm | ignore this person

those two are not mutually exclusive. do you doubt the US is an empire?

Posted by johannesrolf at 06/05/2007 @ 11:37am
boycott the olympics to punish China? why not stop buying China made goods? because it can't be done.

Posted by johannesrolf at 06/05/2007 @ 1:45pm
SRJENKINS, interesting article, especially this line early on---

"the radio frequency that RCTV used for over half a century is being returned to its original owners--the Venezuelan people--under the management of its democratically elected leadership."

So, again, if BUSH (democratically elected...less Florida, and Ohio "we wuz robbed again" stuff, he still won 3 million votes over Kerry)....decided to "let the licenses lapse" on stations that carried ...Air America, not Limbaugh, not Hannity...just AAR....

wouldn't a TICKLE of suspicion be raised by those on the Left, especially those who seem to have NO problem with it happening to RCTV...merely because in THAT case, the media outlet is on THEIR side of the politial spectrum, and the Government on the OPPOSITE side....while reversed in Venezuela?

Posted by Mask at 06/05/2007 @ 3:06pm
I am really tired of the mainstream media like CNN and Wolf Blitzer "assuming" that bin Laden is alive. Is there "any" evidence that he is alive? If so, what is it?

His number 2 was killed without any comment at all from bin Laden (very strange) and we have not seen a "video" tape of him since Tora Bora. Because audio technology has advance to the point where you can fairly accurately simulate someone's voice once you have their voice pattern, why hasn't there been any serious investigative reporting on the validity of the audio tapes and confirmation of whether bin Laden is dead or alive?

Bush seems to find it useful to pretend that bin Laden is alive to justify his operations in Iraq with an Al Qaida link. If he did indeed die at Tora Bora, then we know for sure that the audio tape played two-weeks before the Bush/Kerry election in 2004 (when the race narrowed to a dead heat in the polls) was a fraud and that the likely perpetrator of this fraud is Karl Rove, the chief election strategist for Bush.

This is much larger than Watergate, so I am surprised that the extremely talented investigative reporters at The Nation are not all over this.

-M

Posted by Metteyya at 06/05/2007 @ 4:39pm
Posted by METTEYYA 06/05/2007 @ 4:39pm

Oh come on, METT....can you just skip to where they radio-controlled the airliners on 9/11 and had Mossad agents plant thermite in Building 7?

Posted by Mask at 06/05/2007 @ 4:49pm
Posted by MASK 06/05/2007 @ 3:06pm

If Air America was directly involved in coup attempts and other shenanigans, as RCTV was, then it needs to be factored into the discussion. It isn't being factored by almost all of the commentary in the media.

There are also other alternatives to RCTV - which itself will continue on as a cable channel. It would be like cancelling Fox News in the broadcast spectrum, it still has a significant presence in cable, radio and elsewhere. It's not like it is disappearing altogether.

I agree the same standards should be applied. I just don't see a clear cut case of censorship here. There seem like the are relevant concerns in play.

Speaking of the same standards, I also know that if the situation were reversed as you suggest, it wouldn't be getting this kind of play in the international media. You bet I have a tickle - all the way around on this one.

Posted by srjenkins at 06/05/2007 @ 4:51pm
We're not a republic...we're an Empire!! (Cue Imperial March) Posted by THRAWN 06/04/2007 @ 11:32pm | ignore this person

those two are not mutually exclusive. do you doubt the US is an empire?

Posted by JOHANNESROLF 06/05/2007 @ 11:37am

First, it should be noted that I wasn't talking about a neutral conception of either of those; I was hoping to convey the more ideologically-laden meanings of those terms employed in Star Wars (ie, Empire=evil dominating force run by a horrible horrible dictator) rather than the more technically accurate view of them in order to mock a prior "the US is evil" post.

That said, people tend to use "empire" to mean different things. Is the US a hegemonic power? To a significant degree, sure. Are its ideas influential in the policy decisions of other countries? Sure. Does it aim to exercise its influence primarily by militarily dominating other countries? No. I think the US is certainly a dominant power in the international community (though its soft power has definitely declined to an extent), but I don't think we can really ascribe to it a lot of the baggage that often accompanies the use of the word "empire."

Posted by Thrawn at 06/06/2007 @ 12:57pm