Brian O'Connell

9/04/2003

Eight is Enough: The Dems Debate

Well that was unwatchable. I couldn't keep myself from flipping around. Each time someone began a story about their family history (ugh) or mentioned health insurance (eesh), my thumb went right for the channel-changing button, bringing instant, sweet relief. Ahh.

When I was tuned in, and paying attention, which aren't the same thing at all, the Spanish was often outrageous and quickly became irritating- because of the candidates' attempts at speaking it as well as the smarmy pandering that lay behind it. Kucinich spoke it particulalry poorly, even reading from his notes as he did. It was almost enough to make me wish Dukakis was running. Almost. At least he spoke it well.

And I noticed that 'undocumented worker' is now official Democratese, though this isn't new. The tranzi dream of doing away with the distinctions between citizens and non-citizens was very much alive during the debate.

Is it wrong of me to ask why bumblebee man wasn't one of the moderators? Probably.

One thing in particular that I noticed was flat-out bizarre was something Dean said towards the end. He said he was against profiling- studies have shown that profiling doesn't work, etc. And he said he had no idea why 9/11 should affect immigration. After all there were no Latinos among the hijackers. Hmm. I guess making sweeping generalizations about whole group of people is fine if you're clearing them of suspicion. But what's he going to say at the CAIR-sponsored debate?

And Sharpton wasn't there. Poor weather in NY kept him from attending. Too bad. He would have added a lot to the debate, as he always does.

I missed most of the big Bush-bashing on Iraq and the economy that articles on the debate claim occurred. I guess they were at the beginning. I saw the leave-no-special-interest-group-behind stuff towards the end, not that Republican party debates are much different in this respect. It's going to be a long year.

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