Presidential Debate Part II Review: A Waste of Our Time

I watched the first Presidential debate and apparently I watched the first Presidential debate again on Tuesday night. The second Presidential debate was a complete waste of our time.

What new thing did we learn in the second debate that we didn't already know from the first? Basically nothing except John McCain referring to Barack Obama as "that one." I couldn't believe that the CNN reporters said before the debate how the candidates wont be able to use their talking points because of the town hall format. Turns out the candidates were still able to use their same scripted answers from the first debate in this "town hall" format. Shocker? Welcome to American politics.

Another factor about this debate was moderator Tom Brokaw. His moderation was just plain horrible. He literally had no control over Obama or McCain. As much as I despise time limits for answers because time limitation hinders the ability of candidates to give full substantive answers, it's the moderators job to cut off the candidates when they go over time. Instead of doing his job Brokaw decided to just let the candidate know of time limitations rather than enforce them. If the debate gods had a choice Tom Brokaw would never host another debate again.

Let's also not forget that 1/3 of the questions came from Tom Brokaw himself. I thought this was supposed to be a town hall debate...All the questions were hand picked by Brokaw himself. What's supposed to make a town hall debate successful is the element of surprise. There was basically none of that at the debate. The questions were filtered, the answers were the same as the first debate, the moderator sucked again, third party candidates were excluded again, and in the end it was just another political charade. Nothing new.

I don't like to declare winners in a debate because that's all subjective bullshit, but John McCain didn't himself any favors last night. I will also say that if Barack Obama was up against a more competent Republican like Ron Paul he would been in deep trouble right now. John McCain is shooting himself in the foot more than Barack Obama himself beating John McCain(if you get what I mean...)

Dre