Candidates Get Uppity With Media Royal Family

The headline about Sunday's CBS debate on the CBS website is, "Dems Get Feisty In NYC Debate." This is followed by an absurd article suggesting that the four remaining Democratic candidates for president engaged in unusually spirited disagreement with each other over what they would each do if elected president. (Fortunately, the website includes a link to a transcript of the debate, so curious readers can find out what actually took place.)

Anyone who had the misfortune to watch the "debate" knows that the candidates mostly "got feisty" toward his Royal Highness Dan Rather, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Bumiller of the New York Times and Sir Andrew Kirtzman of Channel 2 in New York. I thought that all four candidates came off looking admirable by comparison to the media royalty's arrogant abusiveness.

I hadn't thought it possible that anyone could top Larry "I really am a king" King's performance earlier this week in the CNN debate, during which he referred to two candidates by their first names and addressed the other two as senators, denounced one as a socialist, interrupted the same repeatedly, and tried to interrupt another.

Sunday's debate was one of the very few opportunities that people who do not subscribe to cable television had to view the part of our political process that is of primary importance -- the primaries. This is the part of the process in which the significant alternatives are removed in order to keep everyone uninterested and half the country unwilling to vote during the later general election contest between two relatively similar candidates.

There was an earlier broadcast television debate on ABC months ago, during which Cardinal Ted Koppel wasted a great deal of time on nonsubstantive nonsense and Congressman Dennis Kucinich received thunderous applause for pointing that out. But Dan Rather must have missed the ABC debate.

Here was Rather's first question to open the debate:

"I want each one of you in turn, in one sentence, in terms of your own spirituality, if you prefer religiosity to complete the sentence, 'This I believe...' Senator Kerry?" The responses were all heartwarming.

King Dan then asked John Kerry about Haiti. Kerry's reply was not exactly passionate, but he came off as very reasonable because he was interrupted twice by Bumiller. The Grand Duchess then asked John Edwards the same question, and he gave basically the same response as Kerry but at greater length.

Rev. Sharpton tried to jump in, but Bumiller pretended he wasn't there and kept questioning Edwards, who went on so long that even Kerry tried unsuccessfully to jump in. Meanwhile Kucinich and Sharpton had yet to speak.

Next, Kirtzman asked Edwards a follow-up: "Why are you blaming Bush, when you could be blaming Clinton?" Kirtzman only interrupted Edwards once during his answer.

Once most people had switched channels, Kirtzman let Sharpton speak. But first Rather interrupted him, and then Bumiller tried to change the subject, ignoring the fact that Sharpton was just getting started and that no one had yet acknowledged Kucinich's presence at the table.

At that point, Sharpton said: "If you don't want us to participate, say that, ma'am. I listened to them go back and forth." But the Grand Duchess only let him get another sentence out and then turned to Kucinich, who was permitted to speak briefly and who is usually too damn polite to insist on speaking longer.

So much for round one, and that was just about too much substance for poor Rather to bear, so he asked Edwards (who just hadn't gotten to talk enough) whether he wanted to be president or vice-president. As America perched on the edge of its collective seat, Edwards revealed that he would prefer to be president.

Rather demanded that Edwards at least ask Kerry a challenging question so that CBS would be able to later use the headline, "Dems Get Feisty In NYC Debate." So, Edwards -- intent on offering specific policy differences making clear what it would mean for him to be president -- asked Kerry if he thought we would be better off with a Washington insider or someone from the outside whose daddy had worked in a mill. Bordering on substance, Edwards did ridicule Kerry's plan to review our trade agreements for 120 days as if it were unclear that those agreements were destroying jobs.