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Here ya go....a primer for the debates, by Krugman

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Bread and Circus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-28-04 09:10 PM
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Here ya go....a primer for the debates, by Krugman
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/28/opinion/28krugman.html?hp

Swagger vs. Substance
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: September 28, 2004

Columnist Page: Paul Krugman

Forum: Discuss This Column

E-mail: krugman@nytimes.com

Let's face it: whatever happens in Thursday's debate, cable news will proclaim President Bush the winner. This will reflect the political bias so evident during the party conventions. It will also reflect the undoubted fact that Mr. Bush does a pretty good Clint Eastwood imitation.

But what will the print media do? Let's hope they don't do what they did four years ago.

Interviews with focus groups just after the first 2000 debate showed Al Gore with a slight edge. Post-debate analysis should have widened that edge. After all, during the debate, Mr. Bush told one whopper after another - about his budget plans, about his prescription drug proposal and more. The fact-checking in the next day's papers should have been devastating.

But as Adam Clymer pointed out yesterday on the Op-Ed page of The Times, front-page coverage of the 2000 debates emphasized not what the candidates said but their "body language." After the debate, the lead stories said a lot about Mr. Gore's sighs, but nothing about Mr. Bush's lies. And even the fact-checking pieces "buried inside the newspaper" were, as Mr. Clymer delicately puts it, "constrained by an effort to balance one candidate's big mistakes" - that is, Mr. Bush's lies - "against the other's minor errors."

The result of this emphasis on the candidates' acting skills rather than their substance was that after a few days, Mr. Bush's defeat in the debate had been spun into a victory....


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camby Donating Member (411 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Sep-28-04 09:16 PM
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1. I just want to hear Kerry come out with a rebuttal like:
ARE YOU MAD!!!??? Do you honestly expect the American people to believe that nonsense?
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dweller Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Oct-01-04 08:47 AM
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2. so, now where are the 'body language' analyzers now?
<crickets>

dp
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