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The Brian Lehrer Show
Texas Debate
Friday, February 22, 2008
We take a look at last night's Democratic Presidential Debate with Rick Klein from ABC's The Note and Jerry Seib from the Wall Street Journal.
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Comments
Ugh, I cannot LISTEN to these debates!!!! My husband had them on TV last night and I couldn't even be in the same room.
Obama gets one PASS after another from the media.
Everyone is so afraid of saying something negative because he's black.
Everyone is walking on egg shells around him.
If he was held up to the media scrutiny Hilary is being held up to he would have dropped out long ago.
Obama is a fraud there is nothing there and if he becomes president it is like electing the Democratic version of Bush.
Obama is still sucking his thumb.
McCain will devour Obama on Iraq and just about everything else.
Ironic that Hillary Clinton "xeroxed" John Edwards' standard closing debate line that "whatever happens after this, I'LL BE FINE...", as well as repeatedly using his other standard line about "this is personal for me." She also took one of Obama's standard approaches in saying "this is about YOU."
Why is no one in the media pointing this out?
The debates are OK to listen to - after all, we will be listening hopefully to one of these people for the next 4 years. But listening to what seems like sports radio describe the event, the contest, the horse race, the machinations: now that is hard to listen to!
David, I didn't get to watch the debates last night and I have watched all of them thus far. Can you tell me in your opinion who you think won and why?
Michael Winslow,
If McCain will devour Obama, how come Hillary can't seem to touch him? Is she so weak and ineffective. How can she touch McCain if she can't touch the "fraud" and baby as you slanderously call him?!
On health care, in the Los Angeles debate, Hillary Clinton mentioned "single payer," and the audience applauded. She said, "that's very difficult to achieve."
Single payer is very popular. Why are both candidates avoiding it?
Why has there not been more media attention to the possibility of a Obama/Clinton ticket? It seems so obvious that they would be better off running as Pres/VP than against one another. And bonding seems to be the surest way to defeat the Republicans. Curious as to why I don't see more of that analyzed in the press, and why it isn't addressed to them in the debates.
Jennifer
(Shudder)....listening to Hillary for the next 4 years. Ever notice that iambic pentameter drone when she's building to a point in her speeches?
Mwah MWAH mwah MWAH mwah MWAH mwah MWAH.
And WE will WIN in NOvemBER and WE will BRING this COUNtry BACK!!!!!
Single payer again. Robert Kuttner, who writes for the New England Journal of Medicine, said that one of the reaons it's difficult is "the lack of leadership on the part of leaders like Hillary Clinton and, for that matter, Barak Obama."
Kuttner said that, if Clinton and Obama supported single payer, it wouldn't be difficult.
What surprizes me is that when Hillary attacked Obama in the past, she was critized of being too negative. Now, when she tried to be positive towards him, she is being critized for not attacking him. The truth of the matter is she can't please everyone.
Have you learned nothing from what has happened this primary season? First that McCain was in the dumps and Rudy was on top and now McCain is on top and Rudy is forgotten (we just hear about Kerik's legal issues) And people thought Hillary was toast till New Hampshire and all the commentators admitted they don't really know anything and here you are again trying to influence people and all i hear is woman hating! I think misogyny is a big elephant in teh collective american living room and I am tired of listening to the uinfair shake Hillary gets in the press incl. NPR.
Micheal:
Yeah too bad Barack can't say something analogous to the way Hillary uses her gender to her advantage, she has said many times how specifically she is inspiring to women little girls, women etc..
RALPH NADER IN 08. Everyone else is crap
The level of vitriol spouted by some Clinton supporters is absolutely uncalled for. The way that michael winslow went off in the second comment of this forum is the sort of thing that incites people. I wonder if people like him can even “honestly” put a finger on why they truly hate him. This race, as every other election is mostly about personality. If it were about experience, then we would not be speaking about Clinton or Obama. We would be speaking about Richardson, Dodd, or Biden. To date Sen. Clinton has won 11 states and Sen. Obama has won 23, so hundreds of thousands of people have no idea what they are doing. That is an incredibly silly notion. Sen. Clinton is simply not convincing most people that she has better leadership qualities.
Hillary and McCain are still fighting over the 60's. McCain thinks he's still in Vietnam. They have had their chance to work out the baggage, Now McCain wants to fight a holy war with the Muslims, and Clinton as the democratic representative will instantly be a polarizing figure. I have had enough all these Boomers who can't now, and never could work out their problems. The boomer generation wants to fight another 8 year war in the White House-no thanks.
I thought that Clinton was going to support building a fence to strengthen our broken borders, it was funny to watch her sell out on that point as she panders to the Latino/a vote and tries to appear more Obama-ish. Obama is just plain scary on his stance on illegal immigration, a negative point for me unfortunately.
Chestine,
We would not be having this conversation, if she had not cried before nh. Is that the female empowerment you covet? Basically all the man-haters came out to help her pull ahead.
Amy, what makes me shudder is the thought of John McCain appointing four supreme court justices.
Level the playing field then.
I don't understand why foreign policy as pictured by Obama is considered "naive" for discussing the option of dialog with "enemy" (those who refuse to be subserviant, we prop up plenty of corrupt, brutal regimes and overthrow democraticly elected governments regularly throughout our history) states.
Is the US ready to admit to ourselves that we're an exploitative empire and to move away from that dialogue seems healthy. anyone who works with kids, and nations seem like kids, knows that discusion is key to conflict resolution. It seems "naive" to say ignoring problems or people who don't bow to us and kiss our pinky is going to improve our security.
can a Hillary supporter tell me what she has accomplished?
Because Obama did not return the salutation, Hilliary's closing comment has been misread as a concillatory gesture. To me she see to be in touch with the historical significance of having a Black man and a White woman, both of whom have a legacy of public service in working for the underclass, with a good possibilty that one of them is probably going to be the next president of the United States.
One comment that I have is whether any investigation is being done regarding the real status of the independent and "Republicans" that have voted for Obama. Before the primaries started, I heard a story on NPR where there was a rumor going around that the republican party wanted to get behind the funding and voting for Obama, because that was the best way to twart the rise of Hillary, whom at that time they felt would be the more formitable candidate in November. Now I have not heard much in the media about this, nor have the candidates themselves talk about it. But I surely would not want to see all of the support that Obama is receivng suddently turn and run back to support John McCain. That would be demoralizing and disastorous for our country.
So, I hope that some program segment could be devoted to this matter to vet this out.
Thanks in advance,
Roy Lopez
a Paid Supporter of NYC
World's Toughest Milkman, do you remember under Regan when it seemed that the entire Western World was celebrating the tear down of the Berlin wall. I wonder what is going to happen 50 years down the road after everyone gets tired of looking at that ugly eyesore along our Southern Border.
Roy,
you will not get any on air time for that point because it is as you said "a rumor". I too also hear "a rumor" that the earth was flat.
re: the ignorant baseless comment posted by Michael Winslow
Those who continue to claim that the media is giving Obama a "pass" based upon his race as oppossed to giving him his proper due and accepting the fact that he has outclassed, outwitted, deflected her smear machine effectively and just plain ol' beaten Hillary on his own merits only expose THEMSELVES as being the ones fixated on race!
Gee, if he were white and he had beaten her would you be stuck on his race? or would you be saying the media gives him a pass due to his gender. How many excuses must be made for Hillary? When someone of color achieves something do you ALWAYS assume it's just because of the person's race?
It's not always about race buddy...face it Hillary LOST because she made some terrible strategic decisions. And as someone else said above...she can't even beat Obama so how exactly is it that Billary supporters think she would do better against McCain?
#21
Exactly. It's funny the idea of not talking to your enemies is 100% Bush/Cheney type neo-con garbage type philosophy. So somehow doing the opposite is "naive"??????
So I guess Billary supporters then by simple logic approve of the narrow-minded good vs. evil philosophy of the current administration???????
Now THAT'S naive!
Albert good point, but Berlin's divisions were a bastardized anomaly borne out of post WW2 that went awry with the onset of the Cold War; a vastly different situation than an established defined border between two sovereign nations. I seriously doubt that you or many nyc listeners have ever lived near a border town, city, or state. It's truly evident, especially if you have to compete with the illegals for work. Do you have a front door, do you lock your house, your car or studio? I'm sure the answer is yes. So do you agree with Obama and Sptizer that illegals should have licenses and other privileges that citizens have?
One of the more telling moments in the debate for me was the point Obama made with respect to Hillary first attempt at passing a comprehensive Healthcare bill back in 1993. He said it didn't fail because it was a bad idea, it failed because Hillary took the whole thing behind closed doors and refused to have anyone, including other Dems, have input, particularly if they disagreed with her. That is a big deal for me, because what is to make me thing she has changed. And what his to make me think she can pass universal healthcare this time around if she hasn't changed her leadership style. I think that is a honest and important question. Any comments? Hill supporters?
To the world toughest milkman:
If you are competing for "work" with illegal immigrants then my friend you have some other issues in your life you need to address, ASAP. :(
"watch out for the dogs", what's your stake in it, are you an elitist, a comisar? I'm blue collar, I own a very small construction company and work with my hands. The construction business is rampant with illegal immigrant workers.
The Berlin Wall was built to keep people in, the borders walls are to keep people out for the same reasons China built the Great Wall. Big difference.
watch out for the dogs - your smug comment is in poor taste and mean spirited elitism
plenty of honest, hard-working people in the food service, construction and many other industries lose their jobs to illegal immigrants who get paid peanuts...
Regarding Obama's criticism of Hillary's vote for the war in Iraq, consider why there aren't more Jihadists in the world?
It is by now accepted wisdom that the war in Iraq brought huge numbers of holy warriors to the anti-American cause. But is it true? If we make a comparison with the Soviet-Afghan war of 1979-89, which was the baptism for al-Qaeda, what's most striking is how few foreign holy warriors have gone to Iraq. While 25,000 Arab mujaheddin went to Pakistan to fight the Red Army, in Iraq we see nothing of this magnitude, even though Iraq, unlike Afghanistan, is in the Arab heartland and at the center of Islamic history.
Furthermore, the arrival of foreign holy warriors is deradicalizing the local population. In Iraq, with the anti-al-Qaeda, Sunni Arab "Awakenings," Sunni extremism is now in retreat. If bin Ladenism is now on the decline - and it may well be among Arabs - then Iraq has played an essential part in battering the movement's spiritual appeal. The writer is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former case officer for the CIA.
Milkman...
i haven't lived in a bordertown but there is a thriving undocumented workforce here in the city (ie - canadians, europeans, as well as central and south americans who are undocumented). arguably that workforce is a 'needed' and 'expected' part of the tax base of the city -- of any city in america (ie - think of the shear number of construction undocumented day laborers in NC, SC, VA, the restaurant trade undocumented in IL, DC, NYC, etc.). i don't think you will find anyone on who doesn't believe this is a problem to the legitimate workforce in america. i don't understand the position of a fence on the southern border curbing this influx into the workforce. believing a southern border fence is a solution, the logic follows you should also construct a fence on our northern border (or a wall around the Florida penisula) -- which republicans or the ilk are not advocating for. the southern border solution comes off as xenophobic and biased towards those who are 'brown' as versus as addressing the problem (it is not lost on me we have a one foot policy for cubans yet turn away hatians with two feet on soil). yes illegal immigration is a problem arguably undocumented workers is the greater threat. no giving license will not stop undocumented workers (or illegal immigration) but it will get to the heart of the problem of undocumented workers - a level of invisibility within society.
If you can't see the problem, how can you address the problem?
I've lived in nyc for a long time as well as border regions, it's not so much an issue of xenophobia as seeing a problem and addressing it. The lack of border enforcement has allowed the influx from the South, if it was coming from the North then I'd say put a fence there too. They only recently started requiring passports to cross the Northern border, that seems unconceivable. Have you ever traveled to another country, ever been to Mexico, wonder if you'd consider crossing their border illegally? I don't really care what color anyone is, it's not an issue of race as you point out. As it is currently the most obvious breach and largest influx is from the South, so as you said I see the problem. The ivory tower blind liberal NYC folks need to visit Laredo, Las Cruse and San Diego and visit an emergency room.
All that being said and oddly enough I'm interested to see the changes that we'll have with Obama. I think it is a great time to be a voter and hopefully it'll become a better time to be an American, Bush has been and will go down as the worst president in history.
Milkman...
i hate to tell you that even a long-term visit to some of the hotbed areas dealing with this problem on a daily basis would not change the dyed in the wool lib-labs of NYC. i can tell you my opinion is born out of having worked legally and illegally (i was doing a semester abroad i didn't budget enough - i had a few months before the end of the semester so despite my student visa explicitly forbidding me from working i got a job under the table at a bar catering to americans)outside of the country, as well as having to deal with the debate of financial aid while in college (a student whose parents came here-from columbia via mexico-when she was 4 was departed at 16 and at 19 entered college here. as a non-national she wasn't eligible for aid but the college proactively sought to establish a scholarship on her behalf. the student body was upset and i found myself conflicted -- and yes as a poor african-american student i found myself discomforted by the anger i found within myself towards this woman).
i am glad to see you optimistic about the future and i'm glad we can definitely agree bush's legacy ... sucks massive arse.
hip_hop_says, we'll see what happens and how things play out, I'm not a liberal, a conservative, a right, democrat, republican or independent, unfortunately our politicians come to us as prix fixe dinners and not ala carte!
Fingers crossed for a better future!
I am constantly surprised by fellow Democrats who say that they will vote for McCain if Hillary doesn't win the nomination. It is clear that despite how loudly they scream that they are voting for Hillary because of her experience and the issues, that is just a lot of hot air.
McCain and Hillary are on opposite sides of almost any issue. How can any Democrat who cares about health care, Iraq, the economy or the environment vote for McCain???
How about appointing judges or women's rights are these issues also insignificant??
I would not put much weight on those people who call or write in describing themselves as LIFELONG Democrats who would consider changing parties because Hillary might not win the nomination. Any person who votes according to their beliefs on the issues and not on race or gender has a very easy choice on who to vote for.
This thread is closed.
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