Three Aging White Men to Moderate Presidential Debate

[NicholeW.]

Three Aging White Men to Moderate Presidential Debate
By Marie Cocco, Washington Post Writers Group. Posted August 19, 2008.

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/95500/

WASHINGTON -- A presidential campaign in which a prevailing theme is "change" makes it all the easier to see just how much things remain the same.

Take the presidential debates to be broadcast this fall. The Commission on Presidential Debates plans three events, as usual, with one a "town hall" format featuring questions from voters, a recent custom on its way to becoming routine.

Another tradition is firmly upheld as well: Three white men will be in charge of questioning Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama on behalf of millions of American voters who, as a group, are less white and male than ever before.

[lisagurl]

One of them will be in Oxford, MS

[kaworu8]

Three Aging White Men to Moderate Presidential Debate
By Marie Cocco, Washington Post Writers Group. Posted August 19, 2008.

http://www.alternet.org/reproductivejustice/95500/

WASHINGTON -- A presidential campaign in which a prevailing theme is "change" makes it all the easier to see just how much things remain the same.

Take the presidential debates to be broadcast this fall. The Commission on Presidential Debates plans three events, as usual, with one a "town hall" format featuring questions from voters, a recent custom on its way to becoming routine.

Another tradition is firmly upheld as well: Three white men will be in charge of questioning Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama on behalf of millions of American voters who, as a group, are less white and male than ever before.

Moderator: so Obama how much do you hate america on a 1-10 scale

Obama: i dont hate america at all

Moderator: dont want to answer? ok....next question goes to John McCain, John McCain would you agree that you are a war hero who heroicly served our nation and are a maverick.

McCain: Well i ummm...yes

Moderator: McCain you truely are a man among men...unlike this liberal guy...anyways obam,a would you agree that McCain is a maverick

Obama: No he has voted with George W Bush 95 percent of the time.

Moderator: HOW DARE YOU INSULT THIS MAN WHO WAS A POW...ONE MORE OUTBURST LIKE THAT AND I WILL HAVE YOU REMOVED FROM THIS DEBATE DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!?!

Obama: but you asked the question....

Moderator: THATS IT THROW HIM OUT OF HERE...well thats all the time we have today i would like to congratulate our winner John McCain.  Remember america....vote mccain or terrorists and gays will take over america.


Posted on: August 22, 2008, 05:25:27 AMDebate #2

Moderator:  Welcome to the second debate, first question goes to Obama....Obama during our first debate you spit on the american flag while saying ALL HAIL WRIGHT...you then said you would enslave all whites and Hitler would be your VP....do you promise to be more behaved this debate

Obama: none that even....

Moderator: i see you still choose to be difficult....next question goes to McCain.  McCain how do you feel that some people dont honor your service and that you are the greatest american hero ever?

McCain: *asleep*

Moderator: wow....you are as humble as you are brave...

Obama: i think hes asleep

Moderator: WAS I TALKING TO YOU!?!? NO I WASN'T ....but since you want to talk our next question goes to you...Obama you and your christian pastor wright hate america you are also an atheist muslim.

Obama: Thats not tr....that not even possible....thats not even a question

Moderator: so you admit it ...well i'm afraid we will have to cut this short...but dont worry, we'll fill the remaining 30 minutes with the clip of obama's former pastor saying "*** **** america" played over and over and over and over.  ENJOY!

[tekla]

I'm kinda fond of a) holding a debate to highlight the diversity of America as exemplified by a bunch of older rich white guys, and b) holding it in Oxford Mississippi - am I the only person who ever read Faulkner and thinks the place is kind of strange?  But, I hope they show clips of the integration struggle at Old Miss, good example of how far we have come, even in the Old Money South.

[NicholeW.]

Oxford has it's own quiet and weird charm, yes. I've been through and in twice in my life. (I've honestly always tried to avoid Mississippi, too hot, too conservative and the back roads just scare the crap outta me, for many years.)

Anyhow, Oxford seems like one of the mostly quiet, scholarly kinds of towns with magnolias and manicured lawns and hot and muggy as Zaire. There's an easy charm about it, or was in the late 70s, provided you didn't look too closely. Or talk to a lot of people who aren't students or faculty at Ole Miss.

It was, for me, a kind of larger remake of Aliceville, Alabama, that at the time was noted and famous as having the highest number of hydrocephalics, per capita, of any burg in the world.

There was nothing quite sinister about it, just this charming and polite town that was sort of a precursor and a southern-drawling Twin Peaks.

I haven't been to Mississsippi again except for a drive and overnight camp on the Natchez Trace Parkway two years ago. So, perhaps things have changed a lot since 1977.

Nichole

[tekla]

So, perhaps things have changed a lot since 1977.

Things have not changed all that much since 1877, and there are still people there who are bummed that its not 1777. 

But I like the Twin Peaks deal, seems fitting.  That's why I brought up Faulkner, who loved that placid exterior that inside the houses were nothing but a slow moral rot.

[NicholeW.]

But I like the Twin Peaks deal, seems fitting.  That's why I brought up Faulkner, who loved that placid exterior that inside the houses were nothing but a slow moral rot.

Well, that's just kinda the way it struck me, even though Twin Peaks was far into the future, Kat. Wouldn't have said exactly that then, in fact we always said it was just like Faulkner had related it.

There was nothing like evil at all, nothing openly hostile at all, just this niggling sense that everything was just not quite sane.

At the time I lived in Tuscaloosa, AL, and trust me, that was on the reckless side as well, except for a tavern called The Chukker that embraced this wonderfully diverse group of Ghostriders M.C., hippies, gays and lesbians, writers and just plain odd folk. And there were never, ever, fights. The attempts were met with a bat by the owner and longnecks from four hulking bikers pretty much as someone stood-up. Boom, he was out. and then he was on the sidewalk and wasn't allowed back in.

Actually it was a really comfortable and cozy place that practically everyone in Tuscaloosa (even the straights) came to at least once just to say they'd been there.

I recall the first annual Bicentennial Bi-sexual Celebration at that bar. It was attended by about 500 people, all the floor space on both sides totally filled, and I mean on tables, the bar, behind the bar, in the bathroom/kitchen hallway and every inch of floor space.

It was basically a bash Anita Bryant thang with orange juice beer and wild and crazy drag queens and bikers in drag and beards. The finale was a biker doing a strip-tease and then taking a dump on a poster of Anita. The "Host" was an on-air employee of the one local TV station.

Crazy, sorta disgusting and absolutely brought down the house, one way or another.

Ah, mis-spent youth.

Nichole

[tekla]

Sounds like you spent it very well dear.

[lisagurl]

[NicholeW.]

That's not The Chukker, Lisa. This is!! > or was.
http://www.thechukker.com/
http://www.druidcityonline.com/Questions%20Chukker/chukker%20inside%20pics/index.htm
http://www.druidcityonline.com/mf-chukkerclosehistory.htm
http://stevensonblog.tuscaloosanews.com/default.asp?item=695703

[tekla]

 I do know the campus very well, the largest archive of blues music in the world is there.  I've been there many times.

But what has always galled me about Old Miss is that it's nothing but a socialized school for the good old boys with lots of money - who, of course, will go on to oppose anything else that is socialized.  Just like Auburn.  Say what you will about Yankees and West Coast types, but at least we made those people build and support Harvard and Stanford on their own.

[lisagurl]

Say what you will about Yankees

When they live here they are Damn Yankees.

Posted on: August 22, 2008, 05:27:02 PM

Old Miss

Is privately funded.

Miss State University ( Starkville) is the State funded school

[tekla]

Man, come and smoke some of that with me, but...


Chartered by the Mississippi Legislature in 1844, The University of Mississippi opened its doors to 80 students in 1848.

Or... from their own website....

The story began in 1848 when The University of Mississippi – the flagship university of the state ...


Of course up north we have another word for people who move to Mississippi, idiots.  Far less letters than Damn Yankees, which by the way, has more letters than "winners" too.  Get over it, the South didn't lose, they got creamed like corn.

P.S. The South lost because their officer corps were really, really, bad.

[lisagurl]

Now, tuition makes up 52.8 percent of Ole Miss revenues while state funding has shrunken to just a third.

In the fall of 2000, in-state residents paid a little more than $7,000 per year for tuition, but that number increased to $9,864 for the 2007-08 year.

The state helps in-state residents no matter what school they go to.