Our Opinion: Contentious debate becomes unintelligible

News Tribune editorial

Monday, October 15, 2012

We respectfully disagree with pundits who characterized Thursday’s vice presidential debate as fiery and spontaneous.

We found it progressively rude and quarrelsome, descending into a cacophony of two people speaking simultaneously.

Democratic Vice President Joe Biden and Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s running mate, engaged in what became more a school yard squabble than intelligent argument on the issues.

We also disagree with the glowing assessment of moderator Martha Raddatz, a foreign policy correspondent at ABC News.

Although her questions were sharp and she pressed for specifics, the candidates succeeded in ignoring her and talking over each other.

Biden simply was impolite. He continually laughed, rolled his eyes and gestured on those rare occasions when he was not interrupting his opponent.

Ryan was marginally more courteous, but not above unnecessary derision that detracted from salient points.

For example, his mature observation, “I think people would be better served if we don’t keep interrupting each other,” was prefaced with the gibe, “I know you’re under a lot of duress to make up for lost ground.” The comment was a reference to the prevailing view that Biden’s superior, President Barack Obama, lost his initial debate with Romney.

Most disappointing was the obvious missed opportunity. During the infrequent glimpses of coherent debate, the two men voiced two very different visions of governing and were willing to challenge each other to identify specifics rather than vague platitudes. The ferocity of style, sadly, disintegrated into a verbal brawl that was too often incomprehensible. Political observers generally agree debates among vice presidential candidates have little influence on voters. In this case, that’s just as well.

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MO4LIFE 7 months, 1 week ago

Sounds like you disagree with everything. OBAMA 2012. Please stop Leaning to the right and be a respectable newspaper do not turn into FOX NEWS

TrueStory 7 months, 1 week ago

Use your bumper stickers and hang your signs but posting this kind of political statement just turns voters off.

copcamaro 7 months, 1 week ago

Biden's mouth just run's before his brain engages! Remember his columbia Mo. speach when he told that disabled vetran, (in a wheel chair) to go ahead (name of vet) stand up! What a dork!!!!! I don't think the news slants toward the conservatives.

Sequoia 7 months, 1 week ago

I don't think most news slants either towards conservative or liberal. I've worked in the biz, and I can tell you that news is biased towards conflict and, frankly, the path of least resistance.

But, conservatives are much more adept at manipulating that bias, and they do it by taking a trick from lawyers.

The conservative movement does this to the media by taking a position very, very far to the right, or something that is outlandishly false. Take global warming. The conservative movement's position is that "Global warming is a lie made up by leftists who want to destroy capitalism."

Now, this is blatantly stupid. But the media is so afraid of being called "liberal," or "biased," that they treat this like a legitimate position. They do stories that say, well here's Guy from the Left saying global warming is real. Here is Guy from the Right saying global warming is false.

So, even though 99 percent of scientists agree that global warming caused by humans is real, you could watch a bunch of news reports about it and come away thinking it is 50-50. The conservatives KNOW that the media is not going to call them on it, because if they do, they'll put on the talking heads to cry bias.

Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney know good and well they can get up there and lie like rugs, and the media isn't going to call them on it. They know that the media, just like this reporter, doesn't have the guts to say one guy is right on this or that issue, and the other guy is wrong. Just like this reporter, they try to play it lazy and "unbiased" by focusing on some pointless conflict like "Who was nice? Who was rude?" as if that matters. If you're already ideologically predisposed to side with Ryan, nothing in the media is going to challenge that.

Instead of a so-called "fair and balanced" approach where reporters simply pass on whatever garbage comes out of someone's mouth, we need reporters who actually say: "Guy on the Left says the sky is green. Guy on the Right says sky is red. Well, as a reporter I went and looked outside, and let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, the sky is blue."

GrumpyGus 7 months, 1 week ago

Modern debates are meaningless. Gentlemen would not need a moderator, rather only a gentlemens' agreement to speak in turn. Moderators slant the questions rather than give the debater freedom to express what they think. We deserve to know what they think, unfiltered. Check out the G.K. Chesterton / G.B. Shaw debate if you want to see how gentlemen debate.

tonto_goldberg 7 months, 1 week ago

I think we have all observed there's a serious shortage of gentlemen in politics lately, or probably anywhere else in life.

As to your suggestion - we recently had a vice presidential candidate who expressed her own views regardless of what question the moderator asked or what her campaign staff advised. She was blunt in insisting on "talking to the American people". We heard from her own mouth virtually everything she thought, unfiltered. Some people liked that.

spelchek 7 months, 1 week ago

Couldn't agree more. Given the chance to explain budgetary stances in terms of numbers and consequences, Ryan would have been (and is) masterful. Biden would have been stumped and probably threw his party under the bus again by reminding us all of the tough times the last four years have brought. God forbid anything happen to Obama and be left with malarkey.

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