Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes early

[joecct]

Carrion my wayward sons.

[ExileOnDaytonStreet]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

Be sure to vote Trump by shooting the first NBA relative you find!

[Craig P.]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

Checking in / tagging.

[French Rage]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/0...&ICID=ref_fark

"No, you can't have a McCarran Act now, it's unconstitutional."
"But that's my point too. People can look at it and say, this is ridiculous, that's unconstitutional, you can't have that. Or they can say, that may work, and I'd like to hear more about it."

You don't actually know what "unconstitutional" means, do you?

[bronconick]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

Just because something is unconstitutional is no reason not to go ahead and try it anyway.

[burd]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

Neither Trump nor his surrogates are going to be anything but easy kill for Rachel Maddow.

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

Neither Trump nor his surrogates are going to be anything but easy kill for Rachel Maddow.

I'm rather surprised that we have yet to reach the point where conservatives -- or what passes for conservatives in this presidential race -- bother coming on MSNBC or their Democratic counterparts show up at FOX. It's one thing to preach to the choir but to attempt to speak to a subset of people who insist your truthiness is in question if you say the sky is blue or 2+2=4 seems like a waste of time. It seems to me that the networks could all do just as well showing the Trump events, or portions and snippets of them, and then inviting the requisite liberal or Trump spin doctor to come on and spin it for people who have already made up their minds about what they just heard.

[burd]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

I'm rather surprised that we have yet to reach the point where conservatives -- or what passes for conservatives in this presidential race -- bother coming on MSNBC or their Democratic counterparts show up at FOX. It's one thing to preach to the choir but to attempt to speak to a subset of people who insist your truthiness is in question if you say the sky is blue or 2+2=4 seems like a waste of time. It seems to me that the networks could all do just as well showing the Trump events, or portions and snippets of them, and then inviting the requisite liberal or Trump spin doctor to come on and spin it for people who have already made up their minds about what they just heard.

I don't know, but a wise Trump will never allow himself to be questioned by anyone but a friendly. We want him to because it's good entertainment, but his campaign is just not capable of gaining from the experience, just as McCain's campaign never gained from Palin's real exposure.

[Slap Shot]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

CNN gets ripped a lot, but I think Anderson Cooper's 'round-table' bits do the best job of trying to offer up two sides to every coin compared with FNC or MSNBC. The panel of 6 is the closest thing to a split side and Cooper will challenge liberal guests every bit as much as conservative ones.

[The Rube]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

CNN gets ripped a lot, but I think Anderson Cooper's 'round-table' bits do the best job of trying to offer up two sides to every coin compared with FNC or MSNBC. The panel of 6 is the closest thing to a split side and Cooper will challenge liberal guests every bit as much as conservative ones.

I like Cooper, and Lemon isn't bad at all.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Neither Trump nor his surrogates are going to be anything but easy kill for Rachel Maddow.

I'm pretty sure most members of this board could school what passes for the conservative "intelligentsia" in 2016.

I mean, Kellyanne Conway has no problem going on Maher's show and getting owned, and he's pretty d@mn idiotic when it comes to some issues. So she's far from the sharpest bottle blonde in the Allies arsenal.

[mookie1995]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/0...&ICID=ref_fark

"No, you can't have a McCarran Act now, it's unconstitutional."
"But that's my point too. People can look at it and say, this is ridiculous, that's unconstitutional, you can't have that. Or they can say, that may work, and I'd like to hear more about it."

You don't actually know what "unconstitutional" means, do you?

you pass it and let the court decide when it gets there whether or not it is in fact.

then you work on changing it (there is that bor thingy ).

[5mn_Major]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

I don't know, but a wise Trump will never allow himself to be questioned by anyone but a friendly. We want him to because it's good entertainment, but his campaign is just not capable of gaining from the experience, just as McCain's campaign never gained from Palin's real exposure.

Good call. This time even more so than usual. Trump's core is very hard supporters and the nature of an underlying interview won't faze them one bit. On the other hand, its time for him to swing for the fences...and softballs are easier to hit out of the park.

I'm pretty sure most members of this board could school what passes for the conservative "intelligentsia" in 2016.

I mean, Kellyanne Conway has no problem going on Maher's show and getting owned, and he's pretty d@mn idiotic when it comes to some issues. So she's far from the sharpest bottle blonde in the Allies arsenal.

Frankly, that's the way its been. Media on the right has baked that. It has created an agenda of attack to a lesser part on policy and a greater part on personal issues. This actually carries over to the GOPs current role as the opposition to the party in power...which operates a bit strange when they have the majorities in congress. Outside of cutting (if that counts), the right has been ill equipped to identify and develop problem solving policy solutions for years.

[Rover]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

CNN gets ripped a lot, but I think Anderson Cooper's 'round-table' bits do the best job of trying to offer up two sides to every coin compared with FNC or MSNBC. The panel of 6 is the closest thing to a split side and Cooper will challenge liberal guests every bit as much as conservative ones.

This is more of CNN's problem than an attribute. Both-siderism (the 100% fidelity to the concept of both sides do it in the media, which makes for absurd false equivalencies) is why nobody watches that network or a lot of traditional media anymore. The Associated Press is currently getting roasted for the same thing.

Cooper-Blitzer-King = The Three Stooges. Crappy journalists on a dying network.

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: Campaign 2016 Part XVII: If debates are great theater, I think this one closes e

CNN gets ripped a lot, but I think Anderson Cooper's 'round-table' bits do the best job of trying to offer up two sides to every coin compared with FNC or MSNBC. The panel of 6 is the closest thing to a split side and Cooper will challenge liberal guests every bit as much as conservative ones.

Maybe, but I think the way these bits have come to be SOP on a lot of the "news" channels is just another part of the problem. Almost every time there is some political "news" being presented, there are representatives from both sides there to spin things to the favor of their candidate or the side their party has staked out. But the only reason we see this is so the particular channel doesn't get accused of bias. God forbid we report and discuss what Trump or Clinton say without a Clinton or Trump surrogate their to defend them. It's phony, pandering and rarely brings clarity to the subjects that are discussed.

I don't know just when we started seeing the opposition party response to the president's state of the union address televised, but it's the same concept. It feeds the whole "us against them" mentality that has poisoned politics in this country. This concept is even followed in years when a brand new president makes a speech to a joint session of congress that is not officially a State Of The Union address. God forbid we can listen to a president, the one elected official in nation who theoretically represents EVERY American, without feeling the need to then immediately listen to someone say something else. A person of one party makes a statement and someone from another party gets to disagree with it and tell us why they think its a lie. It doesn't further our knowledge or foster cooperation or compromise. It actually does just the opposite.

This was generally not how news was presented for the first 30 or 40 years of TV news. Then CNN came along and unknowingly and unwittingly became the first domino in the downfall of TV news. When Ted Turner decided to start a 24 hour all news channel, it signaled that someone who made a lot of money thought News could make money. Eventually, very quickly actually, all of the networks decided "we can make money on news too." And the race to the lowest common denominator began. The garbage and endless preaching to the choir messages of MSNBC and FOX News are simply the inevitable by-product of the evolution of TV news. And 99% of the time you walk away from your TV no better informed than you were when you sat down because you already believe whatever it was that Rachel Maddow, Bill O'Reilly or John Stewart just said.

Imagine if you will the Watergate scandal taking place in 2016 instead of 1972. Nixon was re-elected in 1972 with 2/3rds of the popular vote and when he was inaugurated for his second term his approval rating was 70%. In the weeks following the Saturday Night Massacre (just 9 months later) his approval rating had dropped to 25% and more Americans thought he should be removed from office than approved of his performance. I don't see this happening today because today everyone makes up their mind and then goes to FOX or MSNBC and gets their daily dose of confirmation. Maybe a few of the 2/3rds who voted for Nixon would come to regret that vote, or maybe a few of the 70% who approved of him would have seen a change in their opinion. But most people would simply be tuning in day after day to their go-to channels and dig themselves deeper and deeper into their opinion. Thankfully the most corrupt and criminal administration during the lifetime of anyone who is alive today happened when most Americans knew how to consume news and responsibly did so.