-- as in "repair;" not ensuring the outcome.
Regular commentators had different views on the candidates and their performances, but I think we all agreed on the general tedium of the first debate. I suspect that the problem is overcoaching (though my President didn't seem afflicted) and the engineering and negotiation of a surprise-free debate format.
David Greenberg has another suggestion in a TNR Column: replace the journalism moderators with psychologists, educators, historians and political theorists.
What to do? Alas, the Commission on Presidential Debates can't replace the candidates themselves. But it can do something that would be just as salutary, if not more so: End the journalism world's monopoly on seats at the moderator's table--and bring in real experts to grill the candidates. After all, the questions display no more creativity or independent thinking than the answers. Topics range from standard-issue policy matters (questions that are satisfied by the canned recitation of a position paper) to easily evaded "gotcha" traps to the invariably tame "wild card" query ("Who is your hero?"). Rarely do they result in our learning something new.[...]
Each debate could feature questioners from different fields. Given today's concerns, foreign policy or even Middle East experts might make up the whole panel on one occasion. Other sessions might feature economists, sociologists, doctors, jurists, scientists, clergymen--or, for that matter, novelists, artists, composers, playwrights, filmmakers, and poets. For good measure, let them handle the instant analysis for the next 24 hours as well, if only to spare the viewing public the pedestrian thoughts of Tim Russert, Cokie Roberts, and their ilk.
"Surprise free?" Who expected Kerry to step in the "global test" doo doo, unforced, on live TV? Who expected Kerry to "win" the debate by 2 to 1 yet still come in second to W on most of the internals afterwards?
Posted by: johngalt at October 4, 2004 01:06 AMPoint taken, jg. And I suppose if President Bush had made snappy riposte during the debate with the points he is making from the stump this week, it could have been different.
I think that both camps negotiate a safe space as much as they can. Another quote from this same link is "The problem isn't simply, as is often remarked, that today's contests don't measure up to the Lincoln-Douglas matches; they don't even stack up to the Ford-Carter debates."
Ouch.
Posted by: jk at October 4, 2004 07:58 AMGood God, you want experts to grill Bush? Let's just inaugurate Kerry now.
Posted by: Silence Dogood at October 4, 2004 11:10 AMActually I expect that the VP debate tommorrow night may be much more technical. Having Cheney bury the young senator with foreign policy specifics seems like a good game plan.
Posted by: Silence Dogood at October 4, 2004 12:52 PMIt doesn't take an "expert" grilling Senator Spitball to elicit incompatible positions like "I believe our troops need other allies helping, I'm going to hold that summit," and Iraq is the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. And brilliant criticisms like 'the President isn't even X-raying our aircraft cargo holds!'
'The most electable candidate,' they said. The brightest light in the Democrat party, right? Sad.
Posted by: johngalt at October 4, 2004 11:11 PMIncompatible like we stepped in this big pile of crap and we could use some help wiping it off? We went in half cocked and lo and behold have screwed it up. But we and the Europeans cannot simply walk away beacuse it was a cluster f*ck, leaving now would be worse for world safety than Saddam's regime. "Old Europe" has a lot of skin in the game in the need for stability to be the outcome in Iraq. Put the carrot back out in front of the horse instead of shoving it up his ass - entice allies in with lucrative reconstruction contracts rather than the horribly short sighted approach of this administration to shut out anyone who didn't play along in the beginning.
You are against improving the inspection of cargo shipped into and around our country? I am for finding and rooting out terror cells wherever they may be and not expecting our homeland defense to be impenetrable, but hunting down terrorists will never be a fool proof operation either. I would be willing to bet that we cannot even identify all the groups who might wish to do us harm, let alone find and capture or kill them. Best to keep the barn locked even when you are out hunting rustlers.
Posted by: Silence Dogood at October 5, 2004 03:34 PMNo, incompatible like "we won the war" but we did it "wrongly." Idealists and nitpickers of the day considered allied victory in WWII a "cluster f*ck" as well. True enough, the victory resulted in hot and cold conflict amongst the former allies for decades afterwards, and required American troops in Europe to this day. But we WON the WAR, same as Iraq. (We obviously had enough troops there to do that, didn't we.)
I predict that no matter how much screwing around we do nation building, and how full or empty the Iraq glass ultimately winds up, history will ultimately smile upon George W Bush and his unequivocal dismemberment of the Saddam torture regime. And it won't take 60 years to prove it this time.
Posted by: johngalt at October 6, 2004 12:23 PM