Is this one for all the marbles? Can Obama withstand whatever Senator Clinton’s best shot may be? The beginning of the end has arrived. What’s your take?
p>There were so many “Here’s an I and [the other Senator] agree for the most part. Where we disagree slightly is…” Really, what new territory can they cover tonight?
If Clinton goes after Obama strongly, we get to see how he reacts to it…the media, John Edwards, and until recently the GOP either lapped up Obama’s stuff or ignored him. Hillary’s best hope is to stay on Obama and expect him to lash out due to inexperience with such harrying. Not much of a hope, but it’s the best path for her in the debate.
<
p>On the other hand, he’s already interrupting her repeatedly, clenching his jaw, and stabbing his finger. If she keeps this up for ninety minutes, he might not hold it together. (And yes, this is cricket in my eyes…all part of the primary vetting process.)
I love that she just brought up the SNL piece from the other night after getting the first question again. That was awesome. And hello….highlights how true that piece actually was.
johnksays
But I have to say she was very good on health care. Obama was backpedaling at the end. She had him on the defensive, and good for her, finally someone talking about Democratic values. It almost like she was debating McCain (but unfortunately I don’t think that will really happen).
cannoneosays
As someone who prefers Obama, it’s been all I can do not to jump to Clinton in reaction to the way these goons treat her.
I support Obama, but it seems to me that this debate so far is shaping up as a group of guys gangs up on the woman. I mean seriously: Clinton’s SNL comment was right on the money with respect to this debate so far. Tough questions to Senator Clinton, Obama gets to follow up.
<
p>And here we see some of Obama’s genius as a politician: he comes to Senator Clinton’s aid. He agrees with her NAFTA answer. Suddenly, it is him and her against the MSNBC guys ganging up on the accomplished woman. And now he is off on the high road: “I want to advocate in favor of workers.”
Did anyone who is also watching the debate agree with my assessment?
cannoneosays
This is what I like about Obama’s “unifying” style — it’s a form of fighting smarter and more strategically, not a habit of needless compromise or lying down.
p>As far as I can tell, Williams, like most TV presenters, is a talking puppet. The producers in the back room feeding him information through his earpiece are the smart ones. Maybe there was signal interference.
<
p>In any event, I agree Williams at the helm of a major media outlet is a big problem for the general. đŸ˜‰
What a botched effort by Matthews and Russert. They’re trying to look so tough they have completely forgotten that the point of a debate is to let the candidates speak, not to puff up the hosts. Matthews just cut Clinton off on an important issue so MSNBC could show … cable TV ads.
Tim Russert bringing up foolish questions on Farrakhan. At least Obama didn’t flip flop on Falwell/Farrakhan like McCain did. At least he didn’t actually seek or get the endorsement.
<
p>This question sounds like a right field question implying he is Muslim and anti semitic thats terrible.
Can we give Tim Russert the heave-ho yet? This is devolving from a debate into Timmy’s attempts to embarrass the candidates. We have a debate devoid of education, Social Security, Iran, North Korean, and the economy so we can listen to Lil’ Tim’s obsessions with Bill Clinton and Louis Farrakhan.
Russert asks Obama if he “rejects” Farrakhan’s support. Obama doesn’t exactly answer, instead saying that he denounces Farrakhan’s anti-semitic statements. Clinton more or less calls Obama out on it, saying that she “rejected” the support of one of the NY parties that had anti-semitic tendencies, and suggests that perhaps Obama should do the same. Obama replied that he was willing to “concede the point,” and used the “reject” word.
<
p>Well done by both sides, I’d say. Clinton was right to call on Obama to take a stand. And he did it. Too bad he didn’t in the first place, but good on him for being willing to reconsider (and for being swift on his feet).
johnksays
but one needs to question why was this even asked during the debate.
<
p>It’s funny I used to like Russert, and thought Meet the Press was fairly decent a few years back.
<
p>The man is awful, why do they still use him during debates. The whole Iraq question where he made a hypothetical that Iraq implodes and asked if they will go back. Hillary said he asks a lot of hypothetical questions, then he disagreed it was hypothetical.
centralmassdadsays
because it will be raised 52 million times between Labor Day and Halloween.
For their abuse of the American public this evening.
<
p>Personally, I think they should be sent to a desert island and forced to read each other the transcript of this evening’s debate 1,000 times in a row, with the whole thing webcast live. Any mistakes or missed bits, and they have to start that one over.
<
p>By my calculation, since the debate is 90 minutes (including commercial breaks!) that should take them about three months assuming 16-hour days of non-stop reading (let’s say they alternate every 30 minutes). If they started off in the summer, they should be winding up around election time in November.
<
p>Personally, I’d tune in for the final hour or so. Now THAT would be Must See TV.
Something about Russia, a vital but unsexy issue. True to form, it goes to Clinton first, and she handles it well. Russert can’t wait to play the “gotcha” game with Hillary…and Obama gets a free pass. A microcosm of the campaign.
<
p>Minus 2 points for the fact that neither mentions that Putin will remain as Prime Minister and he will be shifting the constitutional order to re-accrue formal power there.
Obama gets a 3-minute closing statement while Hillary sits there.
<
p>That said, if Obama leans across the table and punches Tim Russert full in the mouth before the debate ends, he’d get a $40 donation from me right now.
I find it a little disturbing that they are both attacking Putin. I mean everything they say is correct but even back in the Cold War days presidential candidates were a little more deferential. I mean they do have nukes pointed at us might not be a great idea to saber rattle against Russia especially if we’re bogged down in a desert shithole like Iraq.
<
p>Also Clinton screwed up the name of the next President and Obama was smart enough not to bother. It is hard to pronounce, at least they tried, unlike Dubya who in 2000 just kept calling Mushuraff “That General”. Either one would be a sea change but I think Obama would be smarter and less hawkish, especially since he has solid realists like Brezinski instead of neo-cons like Albright.
I don’t think real journalism exists anymore, at least in the mainstream – and certainly on journalism. The coverage of Hillary during this campaign, even on the few arenas I typically don’t mind (such as Countdown) has been terrible, frequently sexist and, well, just not beneficial to the American voter. No wonder all we seem to have in this country is ordinary folk – there’s no free media anymore to empower the citizenry.
I prefer Obama over Hillary but I agree with these sentiments.
ed-prisbysays
did the “future President of the United States” really complain about getting the first question? Ugh…
anthonysays
….need not be so literal, do we? She was complaining about chauvinism and misogyny.
<
p>Does anyone fault Obama for complaining about race baiting?
<
p>Of course not*, but he’s a man so let’s not criticize him.
<
p>* He may be criticized for attributing race baiting to Clinton without evidence but no one doubts that someone was race baiting with releaing the photos of him in traditional African garb.
ed-prisbysays
We have every right to be literal. I don’t want to read the tea leaves of sarcasm through my next potential commander in chief.
<
p>A president should look presidential at a debate, should she not?
anthonysays
…leaves of sarcasm?
<
p>Do you have any doubt as to what she meant? No one else seems to.
<
p>Apparently women are to avoid political theater, too.
<
p>I challenge you to accept only the literal meaning of what anyone says throughout the rest of the presidential race. Good bet that it can’t be done within the bounds of reason and common sense.
<
p>She looked presidential to me the entire time.
ed-prisbysays
She looked Presidential when complaining about “always” getting the first question? Especially when it was later pointed out that in the last ten debates, she’s gone first 6 out of 10 times, where one time she voluntarily went first? Can you picture ANY of the iconic presidents of the last century complaining about getting a first question? JFK? LBJ? FDR? I can’t.
<
p>I don’t doubt she was jabbing MSNBC about perceived “media bias,” but look… I don’t want my president complaining about how the media treats her. We already have one of those, and I don’t like him. First it was the liberal media, now it’s the sexist media.
<
p>Sexist or not… it’s a window into the Clinton personality. The buck doesn’t stop with her. It’s someone else’s fault she’s losing.
anthonysays
…never said it was someone elses fault she was loosing but sought to point out a bias.
<
p>Obama has done the same regarding race.
<
p>Every president in my lifetime with the exception of Jimmy Carter has had a bit of a sarcastic streak and engaged the media in disputes over coverage and treatment.
<
p>I can certainly picture JFK engaging the media in such a way, since he was no stranger to verbal jousting.
<
p>Sorry, but what you are saying doesn’t add up.
cadmiumsays
was made up to support Obama months ago since reading “The Audacity of Hope” – unless he did something totally objectionable. Chris Dodd was my second choice. I was working late last night and could not watch the debate. Debates seem to have many functions–one is to see how a candidate does when put on the spot. Al Sharpton was excellent at this. Another is to get them to shed some light on an issues stance–I dont have an expectation of precise policy detail. Another is image and persona. Multiperson debates get you thinking about more than the top two candidates who get the headlines and help make the top tier candidates get more honest. Kucinich was great a calling out other candidates on their rhetoric. Three or 4 person debates seem to turn into triangulation contests. I though the debates where Edwards joined Obama to gang up on Clinton or the debate where Edwards joined Clinton to gang up on Obama sucked. I do think that people read too much into debates–even a one on one over 90 minutes cannot become a genuine policy discussion. Debates serve to weed people out as much as anything else and it is better to have them than not to have them.
…that wasn’t said last week, I wonder?
<
p>There were so many “Here’s an I and [the other Senator] agree for the most part. Where we disagree slightly is…” Really, what new territory can they cover tonight?
If Clinton goes after Obama strongly, we get to see how he reacts to it…the media, John Edwards, and until recently the GOP either lapped up Obama’s stuff or ignored him. Hillary’s best hope is to stay on Obama and expect him to lash out due to inexperience with such harrying. Not much of a hope, but it’s the best path for her in the debate.
<
p>On the other hand, he’s already interrupting her repeatedly, clenching his jaw, and stabbing his finger. If she keeps this up for ninety minutes, he might not hold it together. (And yes, this is cricket in my eyes…all part of the primary vetting process.)
I love that she just brought up the SNL piece from the other night after getting the first question again. That was awesome. And hello….highlights how true that piece actually was.
But I have to say she was very good on health care. Obama was backpedaling at the end. She had him on the defensive, and good for her, finally someone talking about Democratic values. It almost like she was debating McCain (but unfortunately I don’t think that will really happen).
As someone who prefers Obama, it’s been all I can do not to jump to Clinton in reaction to the way these goons treat her.
I support Obama, but it seems to me that this debate so far is shaping up as a group of guys gangs up on the woman. I mean seriously: Clinton’s SNL comment was right on the money with respect to this debate so far. Tough questions to Senator Clinton, Obama gets to follow up.
<
p>And here we see some of Obama’s genius as a politician: he comes to Senator Clinton’s aid. He agrees with her NAFTA answer. Suddenly, it is him and her against the MSNBC guys ganging up on the accomplished woman. And now he is off on the high road: “I want to advocate in favor of workers.”
<
p>Did anyone else see this?
…did anybody not see this??
Did anyone who is also watching the debate agree with my assessment?
This is what I like about Obama’s “unifying” style — it’s a form of fighting smarter and more strategically, not a habit of needless compromise or lying down.
Just click your heels together three times, and click here.
says Brian Williams to Obama. This will be a big problem in the general.
And so much else?
<
p>As far as I can tell, Williams, like most TV presenters, is a talking puppet. The producers in the back room feeding him information through his earpiece are the smart ones. Maybe there was signal interference.
<
p>In any event, I agree Williams at the helm of a major media outlet is a big problem for the general. đŸ˜‰
<
p>Thank heavens for blogs.
What a botched effort by Matthews and Russert. They’re trying to look so tough they have completely forgotten that the point of a debate is to let the candidates speak, not to puff up the hosts. Matthews just cut Clinton off on an important issue so MSNBC could show … cable TV ads.
that happened to her in the last debate on CNN too.
<
p>i agree though, these two guys need to go.
that they just played the wrong clip in Obama’s favor.
Why don’t the two of them just move their chairs over to Obama’s side and be done with it?
they should be sure to bring him a pillow first!
Tim Russert bringing up foolish questions on Farrakhan. At least Obama didn’t flip flop on Falwell/Farrakhan like McCain did. At least he didn’t actually seek or get the endorsement.
<
p>This question sounds like a right field question implying he is Muslim and anti semitic thats terrible.
Obama wouldn’t reject the endorsement, and thirty seconds later he did once Clinton shamed him into it.
i think Obama’s gonna wish he could start that one over.
was awful. Typical Russert trying to do a gotcha. Obama never sought out the endorsement, that was obvious, so why even go there? He is horrible.
it was about time Obama got a tough question.
…some irrelevant nutcase said nice things about you. Isn’t that way more important than the current banking crisis?”
<
p>Geez, a Russert debate in 1940 would have had one question about Hitler, and four questions on what the candidates think of sack-dresses.
should have been the subject of the question, not Farrakhan.
<
p>At some point, the Rev. Wright is going to be used to scare the crap out of a significant chunk of the electorate.
Can we give Tim Russert the heave-ho yet? This is devolving from a debate into Timmy’s attempts to embarrass the candidates. We have a debate devoid of education, Social Security, Iran, North Korean, and the economy so we can listen to Lil’ Tim’s obsessions with Bill Clinton and Louis Farrakhan.
between “denounce” and “reject”?
<
p>I feel like after Hillary probed him for more of a clarification, he rejected the endorsement. Beforehand, I felt he wasn’t willing to do that.
It keeps freezing up.
yeah. my friend is having that problem too.
…by skipping MSNBC and going to the local Cleveland site:
<
p>http://www.wkyc.com/
Russert asks Obama if he “rejects” Farrakhan’s support. Obama doesn’t exactly answer, instead saying that he denounces Farrakhan’s anti-semitic statements. Clinton more or less calls Obama out on it, saying that she “rejected” the support of one of the NY parties that had anti-semitic tendencies, and suggests that perhaps Obama should do the same. Obama replied that he was willing to “concede the point,” and used the “reject” word.
<
p>Well done by both sides, I’d say. Clinton was right to call on Obama to take a stand. And he did it. Too bad he didn’t in the first place, but good on him for being willing to reconsider (and for being swift on his feet).
but one needs to question why was this even asked during the debate.
<
p>It’s funny I used to like Russert, and thought Meet the Press was fairly decent a few years back.
<
p>The man is awful, why do they still use him during debates. The whole Iraq question where he made a hypothetical that Iraq implodes and asked if they will go back. Hillary said he asks a lot of hypothetical questions, then he disagreed it was hypothetical.
because it will be raised 52 million times between Labor Day and Halloween.
All Iraq and Immigration all the time ….
For their abuse of the American public this evening.
<
p>Personally, I think they should be sent to a desert island and forced to read each other the transcript of this evening’s debate 1,000 times in a row, with the whole thing webcast live. Any mistakes or missed bits, and they have to start that one over.
<
p>By my calculation, since the debate is 90 minutes (including commercial breaks!) that should take them about three months assuming 16-hour days of non-stop reading (let’s say they alternate every 30 minutes). If they started off in the summer, they should be winding up around election time in November.
<
p>Personally, I’d tune in for the final hour or so. Now THAT would be Must See TV.
Something about Russia, a vital but unsexy issue. True to form, it goes to Clinton first, and she handles it well. Russert can’t wait to play the “gotcha” game with Hillary…and Obama gets a free pass. A microcosm of the campaign.
<
p>Minus 2 points for the fact that neither mentions that Putin will remain as Prime Minister and he will be shifting the constitutional order to re-accrue formal power there.
Obama gets a 3-minute closing statement while Hillary sits there.
<
p>That said, if Obama leans across the table and punches Tim Russert full in the mouth before the debate ends, he’d get a $40 donation from me right now.
i’d contribute too. but only on the basis that it knocked him out.
I find it a little disturbing that they are both attacking Putin. I mean everything they say is correct but even back in the Cold War days presidential candidates were a little more deferential. I mean they do have nukes pointed at us might not be a great idea to saber rattle against Russia especially if we’re bogged down in a desert shithole like Iraq.
<
p>Also Clinton screwed up the name of the next President and Obama was smart enough not to bother. It is hard to pronounce, at least they tried, unlike Dubya who in 2000 just kept calling Mushuraff “That General”. Either one would be a sea change but I think Obama would be smarter and less hawkish, especially since he has solid realists like Brezinski instead of neo-cons like Albright.
Russert, indeed, is a grotesque parody of a decent journalist.
I don’t think real journalism exists anymore, at least in the mainstream – and certainly on journalism. The coverage of Hillary during this campaign, even on the few arenas I typically don’t mind (such as Countdown) has been terrible, frequently sexist and, well, just not beneficial to the American voter. No wonder all we seem to have in this country is ordinary folk – there’s no free media anymore to empower the citizenry.
Fixing my sentence… it doesn’t exist anymore “certainly on tv.”
I prefer Obama over Hillary but I agree with these sentiments.
did the “future President of the United States” really complain about getting the first question? Ugh…
….need not be so literal, do we? She was complaining about chauvinism and misogyny.
<
p>Does anyone fault Obama for complaining about race baiting?
<
p>Of course not*, but he’s a man so let’s not criticize him.
<
p>* He may be criticized for attributing race baiting to Clinton without evidence but no one doubts that someone was race baiting with releaing the photos of him in traditional African garb.
We have every right to be literal. I don’t want to read the tea leaves of sarcasm through my next potential commander in chief.
<
p>A president should look presidential at a debate, should she not?
…leaves of sarcasm?
<
p>Do you have any doubt as to what she meant? No one else seems to.
<
p>Apparently women are to avoid political theater, too.
<
p>I challenge you to accept only the literal meaning of what anyone says throughout the rest of the presidential race. Good bet that it can’t be done within the bounds of reason and common sense.
<
p>She looked presidential to me the entire time.
She looked Presidential when complaining about “always” getting the first question? Especially when it was later pointed out that in the last ten debates, she’s gone first 6 out of 10 times, where one time she voluntarily went first? Can you picture ANY of the iconic presidents of the last century complaining about getting a first question? JFK? LBJ? FDR? I can’t.
<
p>I don’t doubt she was jabbing MSNBC about perceived “media bias,” but look… I don’t want my president complaining about how the media treats her. We already have one of those, and I don’t like him. First it was the liberal media, now it’s the sexist media.
<
p>Sexist or not… it’s a window into the Clinton personality. The buck doesn’t stop with her. It’s someone else’s fault she’s losing.
…never said it was someone elses fault she was loosing but sought to point out a bias.
<
p>Obama has done the same regarding race.
<
p>Every president in my lifetime with the exception of Jimmy Carter has had a bit of a sarcastic streak and engaged the media in disputes over coverage and treatment.
<
p>I can certainly picture JFK engaging the media in such a way, since he was no stranger to verbal jousting.
<
p>Sorry, but what you are saying doesn’t add up.
was made up to support Obama months ago since reading “The Audacity of Hope” – unless he did something totally objectionable. Chris Dodd was my second choice. I was working late last night and could not watch the debate. Debates seem to have many functions–one is to see how a candidate does when put on the spot. Al Sharpton was excellent at this. Another is to get them to shed some light on an issues stance–I dont have an expectation of precise policy detail. Another is image and persona. Multiperson debates get you thinking about more than the top two candidates who get the headlines and help make the top tier candidates get more honest. Kucinich was great a calling out other candidates on their rhetoric. Three or 4 person debates seem to turn into triangulation contests. I though the debates where Edwards joined Obama to gang up on Clinton or the debate where Edwards joined Clinton to gang up on Obama sucked. I do think that people read too much into debates–even a one on one over 90 minutes cannot become a genuine policy discussion. Debates serve to weed people out as much as anything else and it is better to have them than not to have them.