Archive for February 22nd, 2008

A distracted, incomplete, and biased response to the Democratic Debate

I’ll admit it: I’m not much for watching televised debates. Even though there’s an exciting race going on and the debate included a candidate who I’m kinda jazzed about, I just don’t have the attention span for it. I often have the same problem with sports. Some games will get my undivided attention, especially championships and others with high stakes (the recent Super Bowl and Australian Open come to mind.) But with most games, as with the debate that occurred a few hours ago, I start out well, paying full attention, but soon my mind begins to wander. Then I pick up my laptop and it’s all over; despite occasional efforts to keep up, by the end I’m completely distracted and only looking up at the screen with a “Huh?” or a “Wha?” when my girlfriend exclaims or declaims or laughs at something that just happened.

That’s pretty much what happened tonight. It didn’t help that it’s a Thursday night; usually by this point in the week, during the evenings I can pretty much muster up only the focus needed to watch American Idol (quote of the week: “You are a blend… of every favorite color… that I know”) or The Office (which I really hope is returning soon, because I like it a whole lot better than American Idol.)

HOWEVER – I did take some notes on particularly amusing/disturbing/annoying/upsetting parts of the debate, and will share those thoughts with you here. I do this with a big huge disclaimer: this is by no means a play by play, nor a thorough account, nor a particularly fair account as I started drifting fairly early on and found myself paying attention more when Obama was talking than when Clinton was. I’m sure someone will tell me that’s because I’m sexist, but hey, at least I’m not racist! Hah.

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