The Debate Debate: What do You Want to Hear from the Presidential Candidates?

BE ELECTED
by Meg White

Now that we've grown more comfortable with our two main candidates for president this election year, it seems every media outlet in the country is imagining what the debates will look like. And if the MSM has their way, the debates will look exactly as they picture them.

A brilliant but angry piece by Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi bemoans this moment, when "the country's political and media consensus finally settles on the line of bullshit it will be selling to the public as the 'national debate' come fall."

Taibbi is concerned about the economy, but doesn't want to hear the debate framed the way the MSM insists upon:

"Repealing the estate tax (the proposal to phase it out by the year 2010 would save the Walton family alone $30 billion) and targeting 'entitlement' programs for cuts while continually funneling an ever-expanding treasure trove of military appropriations down the befouled anus of pointless war profiteering, government waste and North Virginia McMansions - this is all part of a conversation we should be having about who gets what share of the national pie. But we're not going to have that conversation, because we're going to spend this fall mesmerized by the typical media-generated distractions, yammering about whether or not Michelle Obama's voice is too annoying, about flag lapel pins, about Jeremiah Wright and other such idiotic bullshit."

However cynical I may be, I am no match for Taibbi. I see this moment as an opportunity for the Netroots to start the conversation about what real Americans want to know from the candidates.

Along with vanilla questions about our in-the-red economy, you can bet there will be a debate that focuses on foreign policy. So far, one is tentatively planned for Oct. 15 at Hofstra University in New York. You could also bet that the majority of debate minutes will be spent on the Middle East. But there are other regions in the world.

One area routinely overlooked by almost everyone in this country is actually an entire continent. No, not Antarctica; I'm talking about Africa. While democracy-building efforts in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East have been common war cries for American politicians, the approach has been hands-off when it comes to struggling African democracies.

Now I'm not advocating paternalistic nation-building efforts in Africa. I'm just saying I'd like to hear presidential candidates talking about what they'd do to stop democratic elections from devolving into bloody conflict like what happened in Kenya and Zimbabwe this year. Also, now that the International Criminal Court has issued a possibly unenforceable arrest warrant for Sudan's leader, what should the U.S. do about genocide in Darfur?

Some may say these questions get down to the intractable "isolationism vs. U.S. as the world's police" argument. But I don't think I'm alone in being sick of such political labels and excuses to avoid (isolationism) or engage in ("democracy building") other countries' problems.

What questions do you want to hear in the presidential debates, but fear that you won't? Chime in and let us know. Maybe the profit-driven MSM will be listening in. They're surely looking for any way to boost their ratings, and airing programming that their audience might actually be interested in watching is always worth a try.

BE ELECTED

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