Considering the quality of the questions

Of course the word “kill” is a euphamism in the first, and literal in the second instance. sorry.

I suspect it all starts to sound like inside-pool to regular ol’ folks who want to hear about candidates’ ideas and policy proposals.

Um … I think the 2000 and 2004 elections proved that the general public doesn’t give a whit about policy. All they care about is who they want to have a beer with and who is going to support their pet cause, regardless of how batshit insane the candidate is on every other issue.

And no … you’re not superficial. In fact, the times where you like the non-substantive questions are EXACTLY the times where you get an idea what a depressingly huge majority of voters want to see.

I think we almost all agree, though, that there has GOT to be a better way to choose the President. The current system is clinically retarded.

Steve we all know you’re not shallow by any means but I differ where there are more appropriate situations for such questions…but we gathered for the debate to hear about and clarify the candidates stands on the issues. Why their stand is better than the others. What needs to happen to get their plans implemented. So many questions and so little time. I’m sure you’d rather hear how the candidates are going to go about providing public campaigns, implementing national health care, ending Iraq and helping Iran’s economy, rather than halloween…it’s why you do what you do…Primetime news shows will answer the halloween questions more than the political ones.

I think these debates would be a quantum leap better if they let actual voters ask the questions instead of leaving the questions to insiders like Tim Russert. There is a structural problem and an inherent conflict with letting the network hacks (who will eventually need to interview these people again) compose the questions.

These non-substantial questioning occurs because the MSM wants to facilate a “gotcha” moment, which looks good on TV, and appeals to a shallow audience. Those kinds of questions are designed to trap a candidate, not to inform the public.

The candidates’ answers seem inconclusive, even evasive, because they are designed to avoid the trap, also not so much to inform the public.

You are just human, Steve. And most of the public really enjoy the gotcha politics. But I expect better from those who seek to be our political leaders and from our high level journalists.

Let me move JRS Jr’s comment up here from the earlier debate thread and respond to it here, where it is equally relevant:

On October 31st, 2007 at 1:46 pm, JRS Jr said:
When are we going to have moderators to theses debates who don’t have an agenda. Bryan Williams?…Tim Russert?…

Fox News is too slanted to host a debate, now NBC/MSNBC isn’t good enough a venue… perhaps the DNC should just host all the debates and pick the moderators!

Actually, JRS Jr, I like that idea a lot *cue dream sequence music*

“I’m Howard Dean, and I’ll be your moderator this evening. For the order of the first question, I’ll start with Clinton, and then go onto Obama, and then onto Edwards, and Dodd, Biden, Kucinich – yyeeeiiiiaaaahhh!

Sorry. Just got excited. Senator Clinton, my first question goes to you. Do you believe that Dick Cheney is Satan, or is he merely a lesser form of evil?

CLINTON: Mr. Chairman, I am concerned that calling Vice President Cheney ‘Satan’ gives him too much credit. I’ve stood up to the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, and so I know about how evil it can be, but I think Cheney is in fact just a petty, evil, unhappy man.

DEAN: Senator Obama, I want to explore the differences between you and Senator Clinton. Do you agree with Senator Clinton that Cheney is not really Satan?

OBAMA: Howard, all of American needs to know that Dick Cheney has more than enough audacity, but he is the absolute death of hope. I’m a man of great faith, great faith; I believe in God, and I believe in Satan – and I believe that Dick Cheney is in fact the Antichrist here on Earth, and that we cannot go easy on him just because that is what Washington insiders might do.

DEAN: How about you, Senator Edwards? Sen. Clinton says Cheney is merely petty and evil, Sen. Obama says he may be Satan. How do you break this tie for us?

EDWARDS: Dr. Dean, I can’t believe what I am hearing. I may have been raised in a mill, but just like I know there are two Americas, I’m beginning to think there are two Hillarys, because back in 2004 I know I heard her refer to Cheney as Satan. . . ”

Oh yeah. Now that is a good debate.

A Dark Unseen Scandal Star?

By Luke Ford

Mickey Kaus writes:

Do you sense there is some large mass of dark matter, an unseen Scandal Star, the gravitational pull of which is warping the coverage of what seems, on the surface, a pretty dull presidential race? I do. So does Ron Rosenbaum. I thought the Dark Star was the Edwards affair allegation. But Rosenbaum says “everyone in the elite Mainstream media” knows about another juicy scandal that the LAT is supposedly sitting on. I guess this is proof that I’m not in the elite, because I don’t know what he’s talking about. … My vestigial Limbaugh gland tells me it must involve a Democrat, or else the Times would have found a reason to print it. … P.S.: If it’s just Richardson, that will be very disappointing.

I’m placing my money on the lesbian-Hillary angle (I was the first to assert this publicly, Tues. 8 pm PST, with connection to the Ron Rosenbaum report).

Here’s a picture of Huma Abedin. Huma Abedin. Huma Abedin.

BigHeadDC posts a picture of “Abedin trailing Clinton and gay talk show host Ellen DeGeneres during a recent “girl’s only” trip to NYC.”

From Wikipedia: “Abedin was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan to an Indian father and Pakistani mother, both Muslims. When she was 2 years old, the family relocated to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Abedin returned to the United States to attend George Washington University.[1]”

From BigHeadDC:

We’re still a bit incredulous on this one, but a top level U.S. Department of Justice official is telling Big Head DC that Michael Musto’s rumor about Hillary Clinton fooling around with one of her top female aides Huma Abedin is based in reality!

“I am close enough to Hillary and Huma to tell you that this ‘rumor’ is true,” the official says. “It is well known inside her campaign that Hillary and Huma are an item.

“If you call Hillary’s residence in DC first thing in the morning, Huma answers the phone,” the official continues. “Same thing late at night and on the road. It’s a closely guarded secret that Hillary’s inner circle guards at all costs.”

From a post on Datalounge: “On the Chris Matthews show he does on the weekends with a roundtable, 2 of the journalists kept dropping hints that a story or stories about Bill Clinton might surface. It was in reference to how well Hillary has put the Monica incident behind her and how the country is now respecting her decision; but 2 of them stated that if another story was to come out in the next few months about Bill and an another affair, Hillary’s sunk. Again, it was very, very veiled, but it was alluded to several times and I remember thinking, “what do they know”?”

Another post: “Mike Rogers is on it at Blogactive (go back to July), and Andrew Sullivan was about an inch away from saying it around the same time, stating plainly that the roof was about to be ripped off Thompson’s sex life, but quickly backed off, writing soon after that he hadn’t meant to imply, you know, the gay.”

From the April 1, 2007 New York Observer on Huma Abedin:

According to a friend, her favorite designers are Mr. de la Renta, Catherine Malandrino, Charles Nolan and Prada. “And she has a weakness for Marc Jacobs bags,” said the friend. “She is known for her bags.”

Robert Barnett, the Clintons’ longtime attorney, said that in 11 years of knowing her, he has never seen her wear the same outfit twice. He also said he holds Ms. Abedin’s intellect in the highest regard. “She has extremely good instincts and extremely good judgment,” he said. “She is also gorgeous and the most terrifically dressed young woman you will ever encounter.”

Joe emails: “How come no coverage on Gerald Ford’s accusation that Bill Clinton is a sex addict. The accusation makes no difference to me because in my mind a sex addict is only a problem if he is an offender, otherwise you just have a person who likes sex too much, I would vote for Clinton in a second because he was the smartest person in the world, despite his ridiculous liberal proclivities and sexual taste (monica??) – he is not boffing little girls or peeping for little boys and the women that he abuses pretty much were pathetic. I just love how Gerald Ford projects his wife’s addiction on to others. The women was a complete friging basket case – she was popping pills before rush limbaugh had a job. they had to do an intervention on her just to get her sober. There should be a rule that if you are a drug/alcohol addict or related to one, you should have to state that up front before you call others addicts.”

Chaim Amalek writes:

As I see it, this can only help her with the very demographic she is most in need of help with: white men.

White men love lesbian stories. And because we believe that butch dykes are meaner and tougher than any five sissyfied liberal democratic men put together, we imagine that a bull like Hillary who has managed to turn a hot young Muslima (Luke – PICTURES, please!) into her body slave is just the sort of woman who can drive the Muslim world insane to the point of impotence. So the bottom line is that true or not, this rumor helps her, because it helps her with regular joes like us who wear pants and grumble about Mexicans.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: next to her, Hillary’s political rivals look like a bunch of women.

Otherwise, the various rumors of rumors (is there a word for a rumor about a rumor?) speculated about any of the Republicans would doom them, unless they are simple cases of heterosexual men in positions of power acting like heterosexual men in positions of power.

From NoHillaryClinton.com:

I believe the story is about Hillary Clinton having a lesbian affair with her “Right Hand Woman” Huma Abedin. Who is Huma you ask? Follow this link to read all about her.

Here is a list of reasons I think the story below is about Hillary and Huma.

For some strange reason the story I posted Hillary’s Mystery Woman: Who is Huma is my 9th most popular visited page on this blog! I insist you have to be VERY knowledgeable on Clinton information to have heard about Huma Abedin. The traffic going to my site is coming from search engines. I’m convinced people are hearing about the Hillary – Huma relationship and are going to Google to see if anything is written about this lesbian relationship. I have hundreds of blog posts on this site – and my 9th most popular page is about a unknown campaign aid to Hillary Clinton???? This just does not make sense to me.
I have been receiving emails about Huma – one came for a Department of Justice computer (ISP) stating this: “I am close enough to both Hillary and Huma to know that it is an open secret on the campaign that those two are romantically involved. It is something you will never get them to verify though…”
If you’ve noticed recently the Mainstream Media has been churning out stories about how “romantic Bill Clinton is when he returns” to visit Hillary. How feminists have great relationships. Some gay organization flat out asked Hillary IF she was gay. She denied it, but wouldn’t you follow that question up with “Hillary, if you are not gay, are you Bi-sexual?” Etc, Etc Etc. Why all of the fuss about Bill and Hillary’s marriage? At first I was guessing that the Polling Data was showing that voters were indicating they were having problems with Bill and Hillary’s strange marriage, that voters might have thought she was Gay or anti-marriage. But after connecting the dots here – I am thinking that all of this media attention to the Clinton marriage is about crises control about this story that the LA Times is surpressing.
According to my limited research the Clinton camp has tried to keep Huma’s existence real quiet. I at first suspected it to be because of her nationality and Hillary’s creepy relationships with India and Pakistan.
To read up on these strange connections view these links: Gupta and Jinnah
Huma according to information sent to me is possibly living with Hillary at her house in DC
It is common knowledge that Hillary is bi-sexual. According to Bill’s long-time ex-girlfriend Gennifer Flowers, Hillary enjoyed performing oral sex on other women. On p.41 of Flowers’ autobiography “Gennifer Flowers: Passion and Betrayal”, Gennifer asked Bill if there was any truth to the rumor that Hillary was having an affair with another woman. Bill laughed and said (referring to Hillary): “Honey – she’s probably eaten more p—y than I have.”
Ace of Spades reports:

This is already out there, of course.

Billionaire Belinda Stronach insists there is nothing true about the rumors she and former President Clinton are having an affair, adding that it’s all a Republican plot.

The ultra-wealthy member of Canada’s parliament, who switched from the Conservative to the Liberal party, told the Montreal Gazette that the rumors upset her and she doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry about the global hullabaloo over her alleged role as Cinton’s latest squeeze.

Echoing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s famous allegation of a “vast right-wing conspiracy,” Stronach told the Gazette she suspects the rumors have been spread by Republicans.

But it wasn’t Republicans who reported last year that she was spotted all over New York with Clinton last year – it was the media.

New York Daily News columnist Ben Widdicombe told ExtraTV.com: “She’s blonde, she’s ambitious and she’s in politics, but she’s not Bill Clinton’s wife. It’s Belinda Stronach, his friend from Canada who’s been visiting Bill in New York this week.

…

Wrote ExtraTV.com: “And Belinda is no stranger to the limelight either. She’s divorced from Olympic champion speed skater Johan Olaf Lass and currently has romantic ties to another politician. Still, there have been rumors of a romance between Belinda and Bill since they met five years ago at a charity event.”

So there’s that. What could be the not “in this form” twist? Well, I hate to speculate (ahem) but it could be They’re in love and Bill and Hillary plan on divorcing as soon as the elections are over.

It should also be noted Clinton has been linked to socialite Lisa Belzberg. Against this rumor: It seems to have been over for a while. In favor of this rumor: She’s reportedly “busty.”

This is juicier.

From the Michael Musto gossip column linked in the above article:

As I recently said on MONICA CROWLEY’s radio show, whisper campaigns are claiming that HILLARY CLINTON is GAYLE KING–ing her aide de camp, the glamorous HUMA ABEDIN, an Indian/Pakistani goddess from Kalamazoo, Michigan. In other words, Hillary may be putting Huma out there in the press and purposely making her more visible as a pre-emptive strike that amounts to her hiding in plain sight. This way, no Republican can later say, “Who is this gorgeous babe who spends so much intimate time with Hillary that the Observer called her Hill’s ‘body person’? Was GENNIFER FLOWERS’s book right about Hillary’s sexual taste?” And does either of this couple have the balls to bottom?

Of course that whole scenario can’t possibly be true, since Bill and Hill have been so lovey-dovey lately for the cameras, and besides, whenever he’s been serviced by an intern—or by anyone—he’s clearly been thinking of his wife. (They’re that close.) But suddenly, Huma—a sort of Muslim SALMA HAYEK—has that spread in Vogue and the accompanying write-up notes that she “oversees every minute of Senator Clinton’s day.” Every single minute? Even Gayle King takes a break now and then! (PS: If I called for comment, Hillary’s camp would surely say, “Just because two powerful women are closer than sardines doesn’t make them dykes.” And that’s so true. Look at MATT and BEN. But now that Crowley has dubbed me the head of Huma Resources, I’m going to pursue this story with every cojone I’ve got.)

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