My blood pressure is rising in anticipation of the second presidential debate tonight. I expect the same post-debate spin we've seen all week. I am positively dismayed at the bias in the media. Forget the pasting Cheney gave Edwards - according to the media Cheney was just an angry, old, tired-looking white man. The Duelfer report is published and the reports on it skewer this administration, yet what has been called the scoop of the year on Saddam's WMD programs and connections to terrorists at CNSnews has been largely ignored. I know some of our readers are irked by the number of posts on this blog of late that seem to be only political, but there is a lot at stake in this election. In recent weeks the media has kept at the fore many of the issues that are not of the greatest importance to the cause of life. We as Catholic voters need to be informed on the issues and vote on them considering them in the proper moral proportion. Mark Shea posts a link to info about a book, The Five Issues That Matter Most: Catholics and the Upcoming Election. It looks like a great resource for us Catholics.
I also offer these links to give a balanced perspective on some of the other news issues of tha day.
Misreporting the Duelfer report - washtimes
Debating the moving target - R. Emmett Tyrell in the washtimes
You won't have to wait for the post-debate spin this time. Questions will be posed, in writing, by so-called undecided voters. That means either that they aren't smart enough to have made up their mind less than a month before the election, or they are actually Kerry supporters who don't want to admit that they've made up their minds. These are people who are mostly ignored for 3/4 of their lives, but can attract attention during election time by saying that they haven't made up their minds; very sad.
These written questions will be reviewed by moderator Charlie Gisbon of ABC who will choose which questions to ask. Does anyone really think that Kerry will be asked any hard questions? The "spin" on this debate is built in. No need to wait.
You need to read some different media. Most of
the media accounts that I read of the VP debate
called it a draw. And I would have to agree, as
much as I would have liked to call one of them
a no-good addled pervaricator.
And DeaconMike's cynicism about the undecided
voter being either stupid or a Democrat is
poisonous. To think such ill of people that one
has not met is .. very sad indeed.
Now that the debate has gone by, I have to say that the questions were not that bad. The one on abortion was tough on Kerry, Bush's last one, on admitting error was tough on Bush. Most of the rest were pretty even. I'd call it a light Bush win on points with a major win by Bush for beating the spread.