I didn't watch the debates last night. I watched baseball, because, well- I KNOW who I'm gonna vote for. Still, I was curious. I flipped back and forth a bit, but I fear I may have missed some of the more interesting moments. Of course, while I was watching the Sox-Yankees game, Fox was johnny on the spot with the score of the National League game, helpfuly updating me everytime someone scored. Why couldn't they do that with the debates?
I woulda loved it if during a slow point in the game, the announcer would have said "Over in the National League Championship series, Jeff Kent hit a two run homer in the fourth to give Houston a 4-2 lead. Meanwhile, in the debate, John Kerry scored style points for his swift debunking of the President's boastful statistic about Pell grants. Don't count the President out however, as God, fear of terrorism, and the love of his family are all up and throwing in his bullpen."
Sadly, that's really not too far off from the truth. To keep the sports analogy rolling, CNN has reported that John Kerry is now 3-0 in the debates. While I agree that Kerry beat Bush in all the debates, I think it's interesting that the media outlets again and again describe them with the language of sports. To sit and hear Shield's and Gigot bloviate on the Macneill News Hour with statements like "Kerry didn't look relaxed tonight" and "how well did Bush come off?" sounds like Joe Buck and Tim McCarver speculating on the status of Curt Shilling's ankle.Additionally, I already know how the candidates "came off." It's a very personal reaction, and is probably different for every viewer. Either way, they are reporting on something that is subjective. What I need these dickheads to do, is not explain how well Bush or Kerry did on their delivery, humor, or overall presentation, what I need is some goddamn factchecking from you guys! To paraphrase Bill Maher, I don't need to know who won, I need to know who was right.
To use the above example that mentioned what I perceived to be a victory by Kerry on the issue of Pell Grants, here was the exchange (the complete transcript can be found at the above link, this has been truncated by me to stick to the issue):
Bush: I've got more to do to continue to raise standards... to continue to expand Pell Grants, to make sure that people have an opportunity to start their career with a college diploma.
Kerry: The fact is that he's cut job training money - $1 billion was cut, they only added a little bit back this year because it's an election year. They've cut the Pell Grants and the Perkins Loans to help kids be able to go to college. They've cut the training money.
Bush: Let me start with the Pell grants. In his last litany of misstatements he said we cut Pell grants. We've increased Pell grants by a million students. That's a fact.
Kerry: But you know why the Pell grants have gone up in their numbers? Because more people qualify for them because they don't have money. But they're not getting the $5,100 the president promised them. They're getting less money. There are more people who qualify. That's not what we want.
OK- here is a real, clear cut example of where journalists can help us out. The fact is, I, along with the majority of people viewing this debate, don't know jack shit about Pell Grants. Here's a start, if you give a wet damn.
First, you have Bush insisting that they expanded Pell grants by over a million students. Kerry responded by seeming to once again handle a prepackaged Bush statistic by showing why, exactly, something that looked good on the outside (Wow! one million more Pell Grants, that's great!) might actually be a distortion of facts as these students are actually getting less money, with more people qualifying.
But which is it? Is it both? Is it in fact worse, or better to have more kids getting less money in these grants? Is that even what Bush did?
I don't know.
That'd be great if someone, oh- I don't know- say, a journalist, could fill us in on that. From a factual perspective, who got it right, and what does that say about how they are going to communicate with the American people in the future?
The things I'm pretty much OK on are how Bush "handled himself" or how "funny" Senator Kerry's stupid fucking Teresa joke was, because that's a personal reaction. While impressions are certainly important, and are a large reason why we have the debates, it is certainly not the media's role to dictate what your impression ought to be. In sports, sure! Let's do it! Tell me what you think Pedro's body language says when hears the "Who's your Daddy" chant! Fill me in on the lingering questions about whether the deaths in Marino Rivera's family might effect his pitching! Speculate your balls off, lads! I'm into it! I'll take all that stuff in my baseball, because frankly, baseball is so fucking slow, I'm glad to have something to fill the gaps.
But in presidential politics, it's a little quicker paced, there is a hell of lot more on the line, and despite the fact that in both situations no matter who wins, the loser will still be a filthy rich millionaire, how about you stop treating this thing like "the playofffs" of politics, and instead give it up with some of the facts?
