Becuase Everything Else Sucks

Yearly Kos Debate

By Manila Ryce
Published Sunday, August 5th, 2007, 4:34 pm
Filed under: Videos: Debate, Videos: Political, Videos, US Politics

If you get sick of listening to bloggers boast about their connection with the common person while simultaneously congratulating themselves on their political power and importance, you may want to skip the intro video. Then again, it’s full of hilarious lines like, “the order for the candidates who will be seated before you has been chosen at random. There’s no rhyme or reason.” Well, if those human bookends called Gravel and Kucinich had the ability to speak they might have found fault with that statement.

Though the time allotted to each candidate wasn’t equal, it was at least a bit more even than a CNN debate. I guess Kos deserves some credit for not emulating the mainstream media completely. There was also plenty of delusion about the nature of the Democratic Party that came from the cheers and jeers of the audience throughout. They’re Kos readers. What did you expect? They’re not slaves to the mainstream media like everyone else. No, their unquestioning allegiance is to The Party.

Okay, enough of my hatred for mainstream blogs and the format itself. We should move on to my hatred of the candidates now. Better yet, let’s read what David Sirota thought the highlight of the evening was.

In the face of Edwards’ discussion of how both he and Obama don’t take money from K Street, Clinton actually goes on record bragging that she will continue raking in massive campaign contributions from corporate lobbyists, and claiming that “lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans.”

But my favorite line was when Clinton claimed, “I don’t, I don’t think based on my 35 years in fighting for what I believe in anybody seriously believes I am going to be influenced by a lobbyist or a particular interest group.” Oh really? How about, as just one example, Clinton’s vote for the 2001 Bankruptcy Bill? You remember that bill - it was the one written by the credit card industry that allows them to jack up interest rates on low and moderate income Americans who are struggling to pay their bills. Are we really to believe that vote wasn’t “influenced by a lobbyist or a particular interest group?” Please.

That wonderful moment can be found in the “Philosophy and Experience” video below. It’s unclear whether Clinton was serious, or trying out a new stand-up comedy routine. Later on in the same vid, Kucinich gives Edwards a Clinton moment of his own by asking if he would also be willing to expand his ban on Washington lobbyists “to include Wall Street hedge funds”. The crowd reacted as if he had told a “Yo Momma” joke. Damn Edwards. Rove ain’t the only cracker who’s getting served. Anyway, enjoy the political spectacle and post your opinion below.

Intro

WPvideo 1.10

Domestic Policy

WPvideo 1.10

Foreign Policy

WPvideo 1.10

Philosophy and Experience

WPvideo 1.10

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3 Responses to “Yearly Kos Debate”

  1. I’ve been watching these videos and I come away with the same conclusion I always do. I want to live in a world where folks like Dennis Kucinich could actually get elected. But throughout this entire debate, more questions were funneled to the candidates, Obama, Clinton and Edwards and Kucinich barely had any questions first directed towards him. Just blatant favoritism.

    I also feel that the questions asked of the candidates are much too general. There were a few specific questions, some related to the Supreme Court and Iraq but many of the questions were open ended and were not YES or NO questions. The latter are necessary in order for the candidate to then elaborate on why they believe what they do. But instead we get these open - ended questions that just leave open too many vagueries in the responses by the candidates.

    Overall, this was a “so-so” debate. I wasn’t impressed with most of the questions. The Yearly Kos presidential debate disappointed me.

    Byron
    08/6/07 at 1:05 pm

  2. […] oh and, check out the KOS debates […]

    Life : matchme for political candidates
    08/6/07 at 3:43 pm

  3. I agree. This was far less of a debate then it was a Hillary, Obama rally. I think the bias towards these two candidates is caused by Hillary’s gender and Obama’s race. Debates like this prove once again that Americans are susceptible, even more than at the 2000 election, to wolfs in sheep’s clothing. Hillary is a corporate chill and Obama is so inexperienced that most of his credibility is derived from is race and the assumption that he will not screw over minorities. Kucinich has worked and lived his entire life along side the lower and middle class, in addition to spending his political career working for the working.

    Obama is proposing an expansion of the military and puts incredible emphasis on pre-kindergarten education, both of which he believes are necessary to strengthening the country. He is seemingly the “out of touch” candidate because he does not understand that it is more important for a person to have an excellent high school and at least some sort of secondary education, be it vocational school or college. Obama is essentially pandering to the concerns of poor families that must shell out hundreds of dollars a month for babysitters so that they can continue work at their low paying jobs for longer hours.

    He panders to the poor black people by claiming that he will give their children a place to play while parents toil all day to accrue meager earnings which they will undoubtedly be paying back into a universal health care system. Obama’s plan is to basically subsidize the insurance and health care companies in order to oblige them (under laws that will make sure they are subject to little or no government over site) to charge less for health care. He plans to have health care and insurance companies provide their own statistics about the care that they are giving. The obvious problem with this is that they will undoubtedly claim that their is either a high level of service being provided while providing no service or claim that service is so deplorable that more public money must be invested into the health care system.

    His system will allow for any company that does not choose to participate in a federally subsidies system not to provide information about themselves but still to be in business. His idea of a “National Health Insurance Exchange” is toothless at best because it follows the idea of voluntary participation. Under the exchange a watchdog group would create standards and practices only for the participating companies and help to funnel business away from the National health care system to these private companies. They will be required to offer an affordable policy to everyone who wants it with low premiums and would have to “justify” hikes in premiums. So essentially if people want to buy health care out of the system thay or may not go to these companies which may or may not participate in a program that may or may not mean more affordable premiums for every one.

    Look at his shoddy plan for yourselves because their are more obvious holes to it. He basically wants to pump billions into the health care industries to stimulate it while they remain private companies.

    This policy is disastrous! Compare his plan to the other candidates including Kucinich and you will see that he is the only capable candidate in this race… but props to Gravel for saying it straight.

    bawuismad
    08/6/07 at 5:37 pm

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