Serious Implications

Update April 21, 2008
Related post: Do Media Conglomerates (like ABC) Owe the Clintons Another Favor?

Update April 18, 2008
An open letter condemning last Wednesday’s ABC ambush “debate” is endorsed by several notable signatories and posted by Mark Thoma at Economists View. Pretty interesting.

“What’s troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics—the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial” - Barack Obama from his book The Audacity of Hope. (Quoted by Michael Grunwald today at Time Online.

At the so-called debate last night that was more like a couple of tabloid shlock journalists (Gibson and Stephanopolous) “fishing” for sensational news, Barack Obama was serious and steady, but who could blame him if he was a little annoyed?

As Steve Kornacki at the New York Obsever wrote:

ABC News devoted the first 30 minutes or so of the roughly two-hour Democratic debate on April 17 to trivial and petty gotcha questions, which pretty much set the tone for the evening.

“Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?” George Stephanopoulos actually asked Barack Obama—twice.

Near the end of the evening during a segment on taxes, Charlie Gibson suggested over 100 million Americans pay capital gains tax. That many may own stock, but relatively few receive their income from investments and don’t pay that tax. Those who do are mostly middle class retirees, who have modest tax burdens, and the wealthy Invester Class,- but more about that later. Obama had a good reply describing billionaire hedge fund managers who only pay 15-percent on capital gains income, a lower percentage than their secretaries would pay in income tax.

Definitely a lousy night for ABC’s “finest.” If that’s the way the pros run a debate, then bring on the League of Women Voters.