ABC’s Horrible Obama-Clinton Debate

ABC’s Performance

This 21st Democratic debate was by far the worst of them all. The first hour was spent on right wing tabloid rumor-mongering, caricature-painting and guilt-by-association insinuation that were almost exclusively intended to put Obama on the defensive. Real issues, like the credit and home forclosure crises, the war in Afghanistan, health care, to name a few, were ignored.

Even when they did ask about substantive issues, like social security, the withdrawal of troops from Iraq, Iran and taxes, it seemed the moderators primary focus was to play “gotcha” by forcing the candidates to box themselves in with unqualified commitments.

It was so bad it was literally repulsive. At the end, the audience jeered Charles Gibson, leaving him looking shaken. Jake Tapper appeared to offer quick thoughts, and his observation was that “Hillary was relentless” in asking Obama difficult questions. Actually, Hillary didn’t ask Obama any questions — ABC did. Or more accurately, Sean Hannity and right wing talk radio did, indirectly.

Reverend Wright? Why did ABC bring that up again? What possible newsworthy benefit did that add to the public discourse? It was just brought up again on Sunday night on CNN, although in a more thoughtful manner. This inquiry was just following GOP and Hillary’s talking points. Hillary, of course, ratcheted up the rhetoric by attempting to conflate Wright with 9/11, Farrakhan and Hamas (and worse, she did so in a vague way that almost seem to be implying Obama had such associations).

Who cares about Bill Ayers? Apparently the connection Sean Hannity is obsessed with is that Ayers and Obama overlapped in the 90s on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, a philanthropic organization. Ayers, now a 64 year old professor, apparently was involved in the accidental bombing in their own NY apartment in March 1970. Obama obviously has no connection — he was 8 years old and never met Ayers until many decades later.

It seemed a little too coincidental to hear both George Stephanopoulos and Hillary read the same talking points by conflating the publishing date of an interview Ayers had with the New York Times about his own past with tragic events of 9/11. The interview was published in the NY Times edition of 9/11, and had nothing to do with the events that were to happen later that morning — the paper went to print before those events occurred (as today’s New York Times points out here). Hillary and George only referenced the 9/11 date to imply, in an incendiary manner, that Ayers was referring to 9/11 when he said he had no regrets about his past bombings. That was deliberate fear-mongering, indirectly implying Ayers was somehow related to al qaeda.

There was no balanced question about the Clintons’ pardoning of two convicted members of the Weather Underground (although Obama brought that up).

ABC spent a lot of the early time on the “bitter” remarks, despite poll after poll showing that Americans don’t share the MSM’s perception that the “bitter” remarks were important or offensive. Obama’s approval ratings have gone up and hers have gone down since the story broke last Friday. The story’s been driven by Hillary and McCain’s campaign and enabled by the MSM. ABC treated Hillary’s campaign’s deliberately misleading interpretation of his remarks as accepted gospel in its questions of Obama, but offered no balance by asking Hillary about her misleading interpretation of Obama’s remarks, her overreaction to it, or even her standing to make charges of elitism.

Flag pin? Are you kidding me? Airing a taped question about whether Obama respects the flag? How responsible or fair was that hit job?

The closest thing ABC came to balance was to re-raise the Bosnia lies with Hillary. That was hardly a redeeming thing for ABC. Bringing up Bosnia was just more trivial B.S.

Speaking of balance, did anyone else notice the “holy light” in which Hillary supporters Chelsea, Governor Rendell, Philadelphia Mayor Nutter were illuminated in the audience by ABC, and the frequent reaction shots they were given during the debate (in addition to a well-timed “validation” shot of General Clark when Hillary discussed her Bosnia lies)? There were no Obama supporters cast in the same light — only darkness, and no reaction shots of Obama supporters. What, were no supporters of Obama there or was that just the impression ABC tried to create?

Even the question at the end about “how would each of you present your best case to the super delegates at the end” presumes a scenario in which Hillary hopes to find herself. Since February, Hillary’s campaign has been primarily focused on trying to persuade the super delegates to overturn the actual election results by “disqualifying” Obama.

In the end, it was a “gotcha game” that targeted Obama to unfairly paint him as an out of touch, left wing militant who is intolerant of others. It was quite amazing performance — I really don’t think the right wing could have dreamed of it going any better. And of course, Hillary was there to lend the GOP a helping hand every step of the way.

The Candidates’ Performance

The most salient point Obama made during the debate was that Hillary drew the “wrong lesson” from dealing with Republican attacks while she was first lady. Last night’s questions of Obama were the political equivalent of a major TV network asking candidate Bill Clinton about right wing smears such as whether he conspired to murder Vince Foster, secretly communed with communists during his trip to the Soviet Union as a young man, or raped a woman with whom he had one of his many affairs.

Hillary has obviously made a Faustian bargain to adopt the tactics of her “enemies” by, in her view, fighting fire with fire. Indeed, her excuse for her approach, and her criticism of Obama’s different approach to his campaign, is based on her perception that Obama is wrong to not join her in the gutter. Hillary’s strategy depends on voters remaining willing participants in this type of “gotcha” media-driven politics that has dominated since the Reagan Administration.

The whole notion of transcending such gamesmanship to have a more honest and responsive politics that actually meets the real needs of voters is alien to Hillary. What she fails to see is she cannot beat the GOP on their home turf. Just as she can’t compete with McCain if she frames the election on national security, she also can’t compete if she plays the politics by Atwater/Rove rules.

There is little doubt that Obama was frustrated during the debate, but so were millions of viewers to see the debate focus on trivial nonsense instead of reality-based “kitchen table” issues. The issue is whether, with the rise of grass roots politics and Internet empowerment that have brought in new voters into the process, whether voters will be duped or stand up and reject this reprise of the cynical game.

We can stipulate that in a forum where the point is more about the optics of scoring points and deliverying canned, safe responses that skirt leading “gotcha” questions, Hillary was better prepared and outperformed Obama. Not shocking — a comfort with slick disingenuousness is an asset in such a setting, while someone trying to maintain some level of honest, direct conversation on real issues is at a disadvantage. Of course, only one of the questions during the entire evening put Hillary on the spot — the taped “person in the street” question about Bosnia — but even that one was a fairly open-ended invitation for her to explain herself, without any follow-up.

Having said that, Obama actually looked a little tired, as he has in some prior debate performances, and I think he could have dealt with some of the questions and issues more succinctly and powerfully (as he has previously). His honesty can even be frustrating at times — like his tendency to quote his opponents criticisms before he responds to them, instead of simply stating his position. But he remained calm and cool despite the onslaught. In that sense, he survived a major test last night.

After gauging the reaction of the blogosphere, I think this debate will prove to have cheered up the otherwise low-morale GOP, did little to move independents significantly either way, and galvanized Obama supporters. I would also expect to see Hillary’s negatives continue their upward trend that they have been on since she began to overplay the “Bitter” remarks last week. If Hillary’s goal was to move super delegates to her camp, then I suspect she has failed. But if she hoped this might alienate many new voters and cause them to stay home in disgust, she may have succeeded.