It was the debate that was over in less than five minutes.
Although the setting was more dramatic as the numbers dwindled down to a precious few, the Thursday event was again a meaningless discussion signifying nothing. Once again, all the candidates, with the exception of course of Paul, essentially agreed on everything of significance. And there was nothing new in what the congressman had to say either.
This is debate?
No, it’s a festival of nitpicking for the benefit of the mainstream media — aka and f/b/o Barack Obama.
Far and away the most exciting moment, in fact the only moment of faint interest, was the first, when Newt Gingrich excoriated the smarmy John King for opening the debate with a question about his marital life. Newt made mincemeat of King — but even that we have seen before.
This is the political campaign as reality show. Romney, Santorum, Gingrich and Paul — another episode of the Real Housewives of South Carolina. Or is it Desperate Housewives?
I am not exaggerating in the slightest. Unbeknown to the national television audience at home, just previous to the actual broadcast, a warm-up guy for CNN came out to prep the audience, just as they would do at a game show. “Let ‘em hear you, South Carolina!” The audience, well accustomed to “The Voice,” “American Idol” and “The X-Factor,” did just what they were told.
While this was going on, off in the media center where I was sitting, the blasé press around me scarcely looked up at the jumbotrons. They had seen this dozens of times before, hoi polloi being manipulated. When the Pledge of Allegiance began, only a handful of the four hundred or more journos in the room put their hands to their hearts. They continued typing and gossiping. Elite media indeed.
And then, when Newt did his take down of King, and the audience erupted into a standing ovation, there was not a ripple from the crowd in the media center. They knew this was directed at them. I looked over at Joe Klein who had a smirk on his face.
This is what we have come to in our country. Politics as reality show. Rick the family values scold, randy Newt with his one-liners. Stodgy, reliable Mitt and loony old Ron. What a series.
– always has a smirk on this face. His beard is too tight.
I think we can thank Bill Clinton for getting people to regard the President of the United States as the “Entertainer In Chief.” Talk about a one-man reality show! Now all candidates think they have to come across as TV stars as well as (or maybe as opposed to?) competent leaders, and to some degree they’re probably right.
Too many people today get impatient and bored if huge problems like health care, Iran or the likely European economic collapse can’t be resolved in the span of a made-for-TV movie. Unrealistic expectations lead to bad electoral choices (viz. Barack Obama).
I blame Romney. Seriously. The Media is a known negative, but Romney started the attacks, and not honest attacks at that. He might end up the last man standing but he will be standing on a molehill.
There aren’t many political observors, nay, cultural commentators I enjoy reading more than you my friend. I don’t mean to criticize your critique of thursday nights events so, I will only ask this: if you truly recognize we are in trouble as a Nation, that our old alliances truly stand a chance of a seismic shift to accomodate Islams ascedency under the Obama/Clinton worldview and that our gradchildren are basically indentured servants sentenced to service our current and climbing debt doesn’t that signify a significant shift to the left?
And if you agree with that, will a moderate ‘get along’ kind of guy be able to wrestle this leftist lunacy to the ground and get us back to the world class nation we were, or is it going to take a fighter? A tough and terrible, irritable and irreverent, grouchy-gingrich of a man?
I think your first instincts were correct. Follow your gut feeling. Many of us loved your thoughts of a week ago about Newt and don’t understand your about face.
Dear Roger,
This commentary is not worthy of you. It is nasty and condescending. Your anger and frustration have gotten the best of you. To claim that the show-stopping rebuke, the roaring ovation and the resulting double digit bump in Newt’s poll standing signifies nothing is beyond the pale. Quite to the contrary, it signifies much, but nothing you (or Joe Klein) wish to hear.
Of course, you were right about Newt being an angry warthog. You just failed to realize that the current state of nation has created an angry warthog in many of us and that Newt’s snarling persona – in that wonderful modern metaphor – is a feature, not a bug.
I don’t know if Gingrich is electable or not and I really don’t care. What I do know, and what I care about, is that Speaker Gingrich speaks for me (and, quite apparently, many others in South Carolina).
Yours truly,
ThOR
It’s also comparable to a prize fight. Yet, at the end of a boxing match, does the winner go on to lead a nation from the executive office? I think not. But if he did, who would you want, Muhammad Ali or Joe Frazier? Problem is, we won’t have even that as a choice, because if Newt Gingrich gets the nomination, those future debates (plural), those Lincoln Douglas debates he’s promising us, will pit both as Muhamad Ali vs. Muhamad Ali, with 0bama playing rope-a-dope during the bout, against Gingrich’s pre-event media spectacle counterpart, picking fights with various media Cosell’s, and blather blather blather, hyping hyping hyping his own invincibility in what will amount to a contest where he who keeps his cool will win the vote of the fairer voter, and 0bama stealing what is Romney’s stronger selling point, the confidence his (re-) inspires. It’s not a bare knuckles brawl art all, and voters will decide based on a sense of gravitas, real or imagined, as to who will remain or gain the office.
Voters will recoil at the thought of how much drama is in store for them if they go for the dude with the most overestimated evaluation of himself. Perfect opportunity for 0bama to start to appear ‘human’ to the tv audience, and reinvent himself as misunderstood genius, rather than the infallible messiah that comprised the ’08 packaging of him. Gingrich does far too much to empower the media. He thinks the media will be around forever to be his personal whipping boy. The media on the other hand, is currently trying to restore any credibility they can get their hands on, and, ironically, by any means necessary (as noted in Mr Simon’s descriptions), same as it ever was. Gingrich will come off as, and in large part is, the erratic, unpredictable, what-will-he-do-next? paranoid, constantly slapping around anyone who opposes him, in lieu of real leadership. We went through this last time with McCain, although Gingrich is far worse, but still cut from the same cloth, hence the Palin endorsement.
You have no clue.
Newt has ben real smart until now, he has not been specific, but tonight to his credit, he started to get specific. He covered the spectrum of social to economic to fiscal conservative leadership. 0bama has dragged politics to such a swamp level that if Newt wants to get down in that swamp and fight dirty as that chicago machine does, then God speed and God bless him. 0bama administration has been an assault on this country, our economy, our people and our institutions. I don’t know what Newt will do once he takes office, but if he is as ready to name and shame the demon as he was tonight, as Palin was in 2008, (and McCain wasn’t) then he has my support and my vote. Amen.
The forever administrators, mandarins, are the real rulers. Elections are show. The clerks, admins, regulators, authorities, for them we serve. It’s nice of them to let us play with the long disconnected leavers and switches . Kind of like a PC game. Like Farm-ville. Or a flight simulator. Political pornography.
Federal Reserve funded bread, and political circuses.
Yes, it’s tedious. Yes, it is just a stupid reality show writ largish. Perhaps this is now the way stupid, attention deficit Americans need to decide these things. Maybe Newt gets this.
There is no more clueless a voter than a middle of the road dolt who makes up their mind in the voting booth, but that’s what we’ve come to. Fighting by the Marquis of Queensbury rules against people who design their campaigns to maximize cheating is foolish.
Perhaps the truly visionary thing about Newt is that he understands this. If so, he is the MAN right now. Romney probably still thinks he will reach more voters on Meet the Press than PJ media. That makes him an idiot.