We’ve got four days for the political TV talking heads to hype up this week’s presidential debate. But just what kind of debate will we see?
Still, officials of the debate commission said they were agreeing primarily to those things Mr. Bush’s aides had emphasized as especially important to them: a strict time limit on candidate responses, an electronic warning when candidates exceed their speaking time that can be seen and heard by viewers at home, and a prohibition against the candidates’ directly posing questions to each other.
I don’t think the cosmetic and procedural rules are a big deal. But the latter condition–that candidates can’t question each other–is huge. Unless the moderator is really on top of it–and I don’t have great confidence he will be–it means that this “debate” will likely be little more than a glorified forum for the candidates to recite their canned talking points. Don’t expect a very substantive argument on the issues this Thursday night.
Everything I’ve read and observed (including the frenetic attempts to “game” the pre-debate expectations) leads me to believe that the debates are going to be useless for anyone who really wants light rather than heat….
I don’t know what I’ll be doing Thursday night, but I know what I won’t be doing.
I don’t know, I think I’ll probably go ahead and watch the debate. But it is clearly a cop-out on part of Bush for no direct questioning. He did, after all get hammered by McCain’s direct question in the primary debates of ’00. All Bush could muster in response was that dumbass look on his face.
Since he still won South Carolina, he should believe that he is impervious to direct questioning. So I don’t really see the logic of not allowing it. Especially now it allows for direct attacks that cannot be directly responded to.