24-hour news networks are awful. You know this to be true.

When you think of someone who sucks, who comes to mind? Is it the guy from Maroon 5? The guy who played Waldo Faldo on Family Matters? Wolf Blitzer? Any of these are acceptable answers. However today I would like to focus on the latter of these because the other two have not poorly conducted any debates lately, to my knowledge.

Actually, the last Democratic debate in Nevada was as terrible as the one last night. CNN and MSNBC have taken it upon themselves to ask a lot of really stupid race-and-gender questions in the past two debates. Is this really what people want?

Real questions that were asked last night:

"Senator Obama, do you think Bill Clinton was the first black president?"

"To all the candidates, if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were alive today, and unfortunately he isn't, do you think he would endorse your candidacy?"

Real questions that were asked in Nevada:

"Senator Clinton, you said that Latino voters won't vote for a black man. Why?"

"Senator Edwards, running against candidates like these, what is a white man to do?"

It really makes me wonder about the people that are electing the Leader of the Free World if this is the kind of crap they base their decision on. The question about Bill Clinton is borderline offensive, and although Obama was pretty much dismissive of it ("I'd have to see his dancing skills before I could really make a proclamation on whether or not he's a brother"), it just seemed out of place. And I don't really see how asking whether someone would endorse you, if he were alive, is relevant to anything at all.

He suuuure is.

Wolf Blitzer in particular is an ass because he pushes everyone way too hard to speak in soundbytes and doesn't give people a chance to finish their thoughts. Especially last night, when the format switched to a round-table discussion with NO RULES (just like the Outback Steakhouse), and Wolf was still cutting them off after two minutes to try and force in other topics. You already had your chance to do that in the first half! Or in the last debate! When you could have been asking more specific questions about Universal Health Care or immigration policy, a topic that has gotten very little discussion at all!

And on top of that, all the discussion I've read of how the debate went pretty much centers around "the way the media narrative will play out." Which basically means it'll come down to what the newspapers decide to put in the headline and what clips the news channels decide to air in the daily cycle. So far it seems like they're mostly showing Edwards and Clinton attacking Obama on the voting "present" issue without showing his rebuttal, and that's what most people are going to see. I hate the fact that the media has so much control over these things, but that's what happens when people don't pay attention I guess.

Ok I know this hasn't been all that funny to read and I apologize for that! I will try to do better next time but I am just full of piss and vinegar today! Argh!