Reporters versus regular folk

Matthew Yglesias makes some great observations about the different types of questions during the Dem debate. Reporters were asking about politics, trying to evoke divisions among the candidates or to catch individual candidates in inconsistencies. Audience members asked about policies, often informed by experiences in their own lives. A glaring example was when an audience member asked what qualities candidates would look for in Supreme Court nominees, and the reporter changed the question to make it just about Roe v. Wade.

Yeah, I found Blitzer pretty annoying, but the whole distinction here is one of priorities. News reporters want fireworks, which make good copy. Professionally, they don't care who wins either the debate or the nomination. Audience members want to know which candidate is closer to their priorities and which could win, which is how they make voting decisions.

Update:
More on the Blitzer style from Digby.

Important Dem Debate Moment

One thing I haven't seen mentioned in the commentary on tonight's Democratic presidential candidate debate in Nevada is the responses to the constitution vs. national security question. It was a bit silly for Blitzer to compress a complex issue like Pakistan into such a simplistic dichotomous question, but fine, there it is. Bill Richardson said that our values are more important than our security - a bold and important statement, although he didn't exactly nail it. Most other candidates said either that security comes first or that you can't separate the two.

Chris Dodd, who did pretty well during the debate, really bullshitted on this particular answer. He said that the presidential oath of office requires presidents to do two things: protect the Constitution and protect America against enemies foreign and domestic. So what is the actual presidential oath?

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Maybe Dodd made an honest mistake, confusing the presidential oath with the one he's taken as a member of Congress. But this is important: nowhere in the president's job description does it say that it's his or her job to keep us safe. Bush seems to think it is, and that he's supposed to ignore parts of the constitution that jeopardize our safety. But that's not the way it's written. We're not supposed to be a nation of gutless turds. Our ideals are supposed to matter.

Huckabee's on fire!

According to ARG, Huckabee's now in a statistical tie with Romney in Iowa.  Giuliani, McCain, et al are low and dropping.

What would Alannis say?

Grover Norquist is one of my true conservative heroes, mainly because he's so over the top about everything. He either has no sense of irony or his irony is so well developed that it cannot be perceived by mortal men. His latest cause is no disappointment:

Grover Norquist, one of America’s most influential Republican activists, aims to turn the question of dynasty into a campaign issue.

“It will be ridiculous to have Mr President and Madam President in the White House,” he said. “We’re the United States of America. How can we say to President Mubarak [of Egypt], ‘You can’t hand off the presidency to your son, it’s got to be your wife’ or, ‘Hey Syria and North Korea, you’ve got to knock this stuff off and be like us’.”

Norquist has commissioned lawyers to draw up a constitutional amendment that would ban family members from succeeding one another to elected and appointed office. If passed, it would not apply to the Clintons as a Bush was elected in between them. But Norquist believes that it will alert voters to the perils of dynasty. “Americans don’t like to go back,” he said.

Good thing we have self-made men like President Bush to fill in the inter-Clinton spaces. And his father. And his grandfather...

h/t to Digby.

Indian Thriller

I honestly don't know what to say.

Victor Wooten

Hey, this guy doesn't suck.

Interesting Poll

An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that, by a margin of 50-35, Americans prefer that a Democrat, rather than a Republican, be the next president. However, when you use the names of the two national poll leaders, Americans will vote for Hillary Clinton over Rudy Giuliani by a margin of 46-45.

Not good, people!