The Millionth Democratic Debate

I'm a political dork junkie as you know. But for the love of God, isn't this the 20th debate between the Democratic candidates? At what point do we just get honest and say that we are doing this in the hopes that someone trips up? What more must we hear from these candidates?

Rant aside, you know I'm watching it because that's what I do.

Tonight it's on MSNBC, which means Williams and Russert, the gruesome twosome. We just did 16 minutes on the minutiae of each candidate's health care plans. HRC is strong on this issue, so she really wanted to stay on this topic. One sour note in her response was her use of a recent SNL skit to justify her belief that she is being treated unfairly by the media. She wondered aloud why she keeps getting asked "all these questions first." Most people I know who are ambitious enough to be POTUS WANT to get the question first, so the second responder has to say, "yeah--what she said" and look like a follower. Who doesn't want the question first? Whiners.

Next up is NAFTA. And here comes Russert with his "I have a quote from you from 1984, in your kitchen, where you said you loved NAFTA and would totally marry it and yet now you say you don't like it. Explain." Timmy's been on Wikipedia. Now it's Obama's turn to get "gotcha'd" on NAFTA.

I don't like Timmy, even if he's doing his voodoo on HRC. All this quoting from 1998 just makes me squirm because it's just meaningless. I mean, if you asked me about a quote I delivered in 1994, I'd be hard pressed to know if you were making it up or whether I really did say it. And, quite frankly, more often than not I'd probably have to say, "Wow. Did I really say that? Sorry." Which is why I don't have a political career and instead get my jollies watching those who do.

Now onto foreign policy and HRC's characterization of Obama's experience level as being akin to that of GWB. His response is that on the most important foreign policy vote of our generation--whether to get into Iraq--he clearly was on the side of good judgment. HRC says that his position on Iraq was just a speech, that he had no responsibility, so his speech has no credibility. She says he "basically threatened to bomb Pakistan" and that she abhors his position that he'd meet with dictators. She feels that she will have a much better case to make side by side against John McCain.

Obama responds that he made "the speech" during his campaign for Senate, so it actually did have consequences. Oh snap, the gloves are OFF. He's saying that she's not ready on Day One. Because on day one, she voted to give GWB full power. Blah blah. Lots of details, read the transcript. Just know that it is all very respectful but really really raw.

More to come.