ABC and the DEBATEs or WHAT SUBSTANCE?

THE ABSURD TIMES

• THE ABSURD TIMES

Illustration: The Decider said he'd give everyone money to stimulate the economy. Again. Most people I know are getting "stimuli" in the amount of 3 or maybe 4 figures (if 4, it usually starts with a 1).

Sorry to bother you with another edition so soon -- I'll cut it short and need to take a break anyway.

I had to mention my own reaction to the debate last night. Nothing was discussed. I kid you not, here are the sort of questions that took up at least half of it and by then I was looking for an intentionally funny talk show.

"Hey, why don't you wear a flag pin? You some sort of Communist?"

"Hey, why you calling people bitter?"

(Actually, I saw Obama talking about that a week ago to an audience and several shouted out "But I AM bitter about Bush!")

"How come you know someone who was in the weather underground?"

Far out. I mean, like, how irrelevant to anything meaningful can you get. Disney has lost touch with reality wince Walt died.

Here's an interview with RAlph Nader's running mate commenting and suggesting a few things ABC (The Disney Gang) might have asked about:

*Highlights of ABC Presidential Debate*,

Rush Transcript

*AMY GOODMAN: *We begin today's show with last night's Democratic
presidential debate between Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack
Obama. It took place in Philadelphia, their first debate in nearly two
months, possibly their last of the campaign. Clinton is trailing Obama
in both the popular vote and the delegate count. Even if she wins
Tuesday's Pennsylvania's primary, she would need the backing of
Democratic superdelegates to win the nomination.

Much of the debate's first half had Senator Obama on the defensive. ABC
News anchors Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos confronted Obama
about his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and his alleged
ties to a former member of the '60s group the Weather Underground. Obama
was even asked about the fact he doesn't wear an American flag on his
lapel. Obama was also pressed about his recent comments that
disenfranchised Americans have turned to guns and religion. This was
Senator Obama's response.

*SEN. BARACK OBAMA: *Let me be very clear about what I meant,
because it's something that I've said in public, it's something
that I've said on television, which is that people are going
through very difficult times right now. And we are seeing it all
across the country, and that was true even before the current
economic hardships that are stemming from the housing crisis. This
is the first economic expansion that we just completed in which
ordinary people's incomes actually went down, when adjusted for
inflation, at the same time as their costs of everything from
healthcare to gas at the pump have skyrocketed.

And so, the point I was making was that when people feel like
Washington's not listening to them, when they're promised year
after year, decade after decade, that their economic situation is
going to change, and it doesn't, then politically they end up
focusing on those things that are constant, like religion. They
end up feeling "This is a place where I can find some refugee.
This is something that I can count on." They end up being much
more concerned about votes around things like guns, where
traditions have been passed on from generation to generation. And
those are incredibly important to them.

And yes, what is also true is that wedge issues, hot-button
issues, end up taking prominence in our politics. And part of the
problem is that when those issues are exploited, we never get to
solve the issues that people really have to get some relief on,
whether it's healthcare or education or jobs.

*AMY GOODMAN: *In a reversal of previous statements, Senator Clinton
conceded she believes Obama could defeat McCain in November, but she
also defended her campaign's focus on Obama's recent comments and argued
she's the better candidate to take on Republican candidate John McCain.

*SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: *First of all, I want to be very clear: my
comments were about your remarks. And I think that's important,
because it wasn't just me responding to them, it was people who
heard them, people who felt as though they were aimed at their
values, their quality of life, the decisions that they have made.

Now, obviously, what we have to do as Democrats is make sure we
get enough votes to win in November. And as George just said, you
know, the Republicans, who are pretty shrewd about what it takes
to win, certainly did jump on the comments.

But what's important here is what we each stand for and what our
records are and what we have done over the course of our lives to
try to improve the circumstances of those who deserve to live up
to their own potential, to make the decisions that are right for
them and their families. And I think year after year for now
thirty-five years, I have a proven record of results.

And what I'm taking into this campaign is my passion for
empowering people, for giving people the feeling that they can
make a better future for themselves. And I think it's important
that that starts from a base of respect and connection in order to
be able to get people to follow you and believe that you will lead
them in the better direction.

*AMY GOODMAN: *The debate later turned to the issues. On Iraq, both
candidates vowed to begin a withdrawal from Iraq rather than wait for a
recommendation from General David Petraeus.

*SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: *But one thing I am sure of is that our
staying in Iraq, our continuing to lose our men and women in
uniform, having many injured, the Iraqi casualties that we are
seeing as well, is no way for us to maintain a strong position in
the world.

It's not only about Iraq. It is about ending the war in Iraq, so
that we can begin paying attention to all of the other problems we
have. There isn't any doubt that Afghanistan has been neglected.
It has not gotten the resources that it needs. We hear that from
our military commanders responsible for that region of the world.
And there are other problems that we have failed to address.

So the bottom line for me is, we don't know what will happen as we
withdraw. We do know what will happen if we stay mired in Iraq.
The Iraqi government will not accept responsibility for its own
future. Our military will continue to be stretched thin, and our
soldiers will be on their second, third, even their fourth
deployment. And we will not be able to reassert our leadership and
our moral authority in the world. And I think those are the kind
of broad issues that a president has to take into account.

*CHARLIE GIBSON: *And Senator Obama, your campaign manager, David
Plouffe, said, "When he is"-this is talking about you-"When he is
elected president, we will be out of Iraq [...] in sixteen months at the
most; there should be no confusion about that." So you'd give the same
rock-hard pledge, that no matter what the military commanders said, you
would give the order: bring them home.

*SEN. BARACK OBAMA: *Because the commander-in-chief sets the mission,
Charlie. That's not the role of the generals. And one of the things
that's been interesting about the President's approach lately has been
to say, 'Well, I'm just taking cues from General Petraeus.' Well, the
President sets the mission. The General and our troops carry out that
mission. And unfortunately, we have had a bad mission set by our
civilian leadership, which our military has performed brilliantly. But
it is time for us to set a strategy that is going to make the American
people safer.

Now, I will always listen to our commanders on the ground with respect
to tactics. Once I've given them a new mission, that we are going to
proceed deliberately in an orderly fashion out of Iraq and we are going
to have our combat troops out, we will not have permanent bases there,
once I've provided that mission, if they come to me and want to adjust
tactics, then I will certainly take their recommendations into
consideration. But ultimately the buck stops with me as the
commander-in-chief.

*AMY GOODMAN: *From the Democrats, we now turn to another candidate in
the 2008 field: Matt Gonzalez, running on Ralph Nader's ticket as a
vice-presidential candidate, San Francisco-based attorney, former
president of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. In 2003 he ran for
mayor of San Francisco on the Green Party ticket but lost in a close
race to Democrat Gavin Newsom. Matt Gonzalez joins me here in Palo Alto
at Stanford University. Welcome to /Democracy Now!/

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Thanks for having me.

*AMY GOODMAN: *Well, as we play clips of the debate last night, let's
start at the beginning, with this whole controversy about what Senator
Barack Obama said about people who are in desperate conditions, people
who are economically strapped, turning to guns and religion.

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Well, Amy, I think it's a tempest in a teapot. I don't
think that you can take this one- or two-sentence remark that Senator
Obama made and really draw all kinds of conclusions by it. I think
anybody that's in the political arena, often as you're speaking, you
engage in shortcuts as you're trying to make a point. And my
understanding of the way the polls have played out there, the comment
isn't that significant.

*AMY GOODMAN: *And these other issues that were raised for the first
forty-five minutes of this debate: wearing a lapel pin, friends with
someone who was in the Weather Underground in the 1960s?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Well, I think that that's disturbing. I think the real
question is the responsibility of the media not to, essentially, present
these in a way that suggests that there is something that Senator Obama
has to explain about them. And that's the sense that I have is what
occurred last night.

*AMY GOODMAN: *Their positions on war?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Well, I think the debate actually-and the problem with
the debate is that they're not getting clear answers on these issues.
The candidates are using certain catch phrases. They're saying "no
permanent bases" and "we're going to start a withdrawal" or "we're going
to get combat troops out." But they're not committing to having troops
out of the region in the first four years of their presidency. They have
left it very open. I think Senator Obama, in an interview with you,
indicated that he would leave the private army that's there, over
100,000. And I think there are policy groups, Democratic policy groups,
that have made it clear that it would require tens of thousands of
soldiers in Iraq to carry out Senator Obama's mandate, which is to be
able to strike at al-Qaeda and do counterterrorism there.

*AMY GOODMAN: *What is your proposal?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Well, I think Nader has been very committed to getting
our troops out. He's saying that the resistance is going to continue as
long as there's an American presence there, and we have to start
engaging in a foreign policy that doesn't believe that you're going to
accomplish everything through aggression. I think it's very clear that
the United States has a long history of engaging in foreign policy for
our quote-unquote "interests," which are unfortunately too often
corporate interests.

*AMY GOODMAN: *I wanted to turn to the candidates' positions on the
economy. This is a clip from last night's debate in Pennsylvania.

*SEN. BARACK OBAMA: *We have seen wages and incomes flat or
declining at a time when costs have gone up. And one of the things
that we've learned from George Bush's economic policies, which
John McCain now wants to follow, is that pain trickles up. And so,
partly because people have been strapped and have had a tough time
making ends meet, we're now seeing a deteriorating housing market.

That's also as a consequence of the lack of oversight and
regulation of these banks and financial institutions that gave
loans that they shouldn't have. And part of it has to do with the
fact that you had $185 million by mortgage lenders spent on
lobbyists and special interests who were writing these laws.

So the rules in Washington-the tax code has been written on behalf
of the well connected. Our trade laws have-same thing has
happened. And part of how we're going to be able to deliver on
middle-class tax relief is to change how business is done in
Washington. And that's been a central focus of our campaign.

*AMY GOODMAN: *Senator Clinton also touted her economic plan.

*SEN. HILLARY CLINTON: *I think we have to invest in our
infrastructure. That also will get the economy moving again, and I
believe we could put about three million people to work in good
union jobs, where people get a good wage with a good set of
benefits that can support a middle-class family with a rising
standard of living.

I want to see us actually tackle the housing crisis, something
I've been talking about for over a year. If I had been president a
year ago, I believe we would have begun to avoid some of the worst
of the mortgage and credit crisis, because we would have started
much earlier than we have-in fact, I don't think we've really done
very much at all yet-in dealing with a way of freezing home
foreclosures, of freezing interest rates, getting money into
communities to be able to withstand the problems that are caused
by foreclosures.

*AMY GOODMAN: *Independent vice-presidential candidate Matt Gonzalez,
your response to their economic proposals?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Well, I don't think you can really talk about the
economy without talking about the tremendous amount of resources we're
putting into the war. A full 55, maybe as much as 60, percent of our tax
dollars are going to this war, to paying debt on the war, to going into
the military. Both the Republican and Democratic candidates in this
field want to increase military spending. And so, for all of the
rhetoric about trying to deal with, you know, the common person, the war
has to be addressed.

The other thing I would say is that when the Democrats took Congress,
when Pelosi became the Speaker, they moved forward on raising the
minimum wage. But one thing that they didn't do is address an issue that
these candidates are raising now, which is, as cost of living shifts,
that minimum wage should be going up without having to go back and have
a fight in Congress. When we passed the minimum wage in San Francisco,
we did that. And again, the question mark is, how effective is our
opposition party in Congress, when, when they have a majority, they
don't take advantage of it and institute something that can work on its
own in the future?

*AMY GOODMAN: *Do you and Ralph Nader have a strategy to win?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *I do. I certainly do. In talking to Ralph, I think he's
very heartened by some of the polls that are out there. The real
question is whether or not we're going to be allowed into the debates.
When I ran for mayor, I started-in San Francisco, I started with support
of maybe three, four percent. Because I was allowed into debates, that
eventually became 47 percent. Nader has poll numbers in Michigan at ten
percent. Other national polls have put him at five, six percent. I think
that-put us in the debates, and let's see how it goes. And I think as
the American people see there is an alternative, those numbers will get
stronger.

*AMY GOODMAN: *And the argument, of course, that this is a pivotal year,
2008, in changing the direction of this country-what impact do you think
your race will have?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Well, I think one thing that's important to keep in
mind is that if you don't change how elections are happening, you're
never going to have the fundamental change that you need to address a
host of issues. So if we don't run, there's no problem that needs to be
fixed, and we keep on this very narrow political spectrum. If we run, we
raise the question, which is, "What are the other political parties
doing to reform elections?" and "Why aren't they addressing issues that
we're addressing, like single-payer healthcare or issues related to a
full withdrawal from the war in Iraq?"-questions like that.

*AMY GOODMAN: *If you had won in 2003 against Gavin Newsom for mayor of
San Francisco, you would have been the first Green mayor, the first
Green Party mayor in the country. Yet, now you have left the Green Party
to run as an independent. Why?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Well, I left the Green Party to enhance ballot access
in certain states that don't allow you to be a member of a political
party and run as an independent. I think the important thing that would
have happened if I had been elected mayor of San Francisco is that a lot
of the red-baiting that was taking place in that campaign would have
essentially gone to the wayside. I think people would have seen that
members of the left can govern when they're given an opportunity to do
that.

*AMY GOODMAN: *You talked about the polls in Michigan, indicating Ralph
Nader has a good percentage there. But what is your strategy to win? How
are you campaigning right now?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Well, Ralph is on the road full-time. I'm doing
interviews every day, and I'm going to join him as he's reaching
California in a couple of weeks and start traveling up to the Northwest.
And I think it's the way you campaign in any contest: it's one voter at
a time. You talk about the issues, and you challenge your opponents to
win your voters away from you if they're concerned about some outcome
that shouldn't happen. I think that in a three-candidate race, a
four-candidate race, you can win the contest with 35 percent of the
vote. So if you're allowed into the debates and you suddenly have 15, 20
percent, there are a lot of voters who will suddenly consider you, if
they truly believe that you're competitive and have a chance to win.

*AMY GOODMAN: *If you were vice president today, what would be your
first act in regards to Iraq?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Well, I think we would certainly start an orderly
withdrawal of all the troops out of Iraq. I don't think there's any
question about that.

*AMY GOODMAN: *The issue of the candidates on the issues, what-is there
a candidate who you prefer?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Well, I don't want John McCain to win the contest, but
I don't want Senator Obama or Senator Clinton to win either. I think
what's missing from the debate is the fact that nobody is asking
Senators Obama and Clinton to account for some of their terrible votes,
when Obama votes for the Class Action Reform Act, which was a Republican
bill to really make it harder for people to bring class-action lawsuits,
or when he supports something like the Energy Policy Act in 2005, which
is one of the reasons why oil companies have the profits that they have
this year. Why aren't we having that discussion? And before progressives
vote for him or vote for Clinton, they ought to have an accounting as to
how you can vote for those bills and somehow suddenly change the culture
of Washington if you're elected president of the United States.

*AMY GOODMAN: *I wanted to turn to another clip of the debate last
night. This is a clip of-well, Senator Obama was asked how he would use
past presidents, how specifically he would use, if he would use, George
W. Bush.

*SEN. BARACK OBAMA: *I'm probably more likely to ask advice of the
current president's father than the President himself, because I
think that when you look back at George H.W. Bush's foreign
policy, it was a wise foreign policy, and how we executed the Gulf
War, how we managed the transition out of the Cold War, I think,
is an example of how we can get bipartisan agreement. I don't
think the Democrats have a monopoly on good ideas. I think that
there are a lot of thoughtful Republicans out there. The problem
is, we've been locked in a divided politics for so long that we've
stopped listening to each other.

*AMY GOODMAN: *Your response to Barack Obama?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Well, I think it's unfortunate that he continues to
make these remarks. He made similar remarks on /Larry King Live/ about a
month ago. I think he's romanticizing George Bush, Sr.'s presidency and
the way that he acquitted himself in the original Iraq war.

*AMY GOODMAN: *The fact that President Bush-that's George H.W.
Bush-invaded Panama, Iraq, as well, what about Obama's expressed support
for him, turning to him?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Yeah, I just don't understand it. I don't understand
how, on the one hand, you can be suggesting that you're really going to
engage in a different kind of foreign policy and sort of wax eloquently
and romanticize this sort of presidency in what it could offer you in
terms of advice. I think it's troubling.

*AMY GOODMAN: *Is there an area of the country you're going to be
focusing on?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *I'll probably be more on the West. I've got trips
planned to New Mexico and Arizona, and that's where I'll start.

*AMY GOODMAN: *The fact that Barack Obama didn't want to have a photo
taken of him with Gavin Newsom, afraid, at least as the reports go,
concerned about Gavin Newsom's support for gay marriage?

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Well, I think that the way we create change if we're
progressives is that we have the courage to go out and articulate what
we believe in. And certainly, taking a picture with an elected official,
there's just nothing wrong about that. And to want to distance yourself
from that, I think, says a lot about the lack of courage you have and
the unlikeliness of you being able to change Washington.

*AMY GOODMAN: *Matt Gonzalez, I want to thank you for being with us.

*MATT GONZALEZ: *Thanks for having me.

*AMY GOODMAN: *Independent vice-presidential candidate on Ralph Nader's
ticket.