Obama Dusts Dem Haters Off

Oh the Inanity! - so read the headlines at TPM muckraker, as they sat through the torturous debacle of a debate hosted by ABC and moderated by anchors George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson. Editor & Publisher called ABC's presidential debate "perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years.

An annoyed--but rather calm--Obama by Thursday turned the tables on his moderators, by taking a little cue from Jay-Z. And in less than 48hrs, it's become an online favorite.

Peep the video above, and read the rest below. As always, the Imeem box in the lower right column of the blog can be paused.



Oh the Inanity! - so read the headlines at TPM muckraker, as they sat through the torturous debacle of a debate hosted by ABC and moderated by anchors George Stephanopoulos and Charlie Gibson. For 53 minutes, the corporate media pundits touched on no substantative issues in this 21st Democratic Debate held in Philadelphia. Instead topics ranged from fixations on Obama's wearing of flag lapel pins to his nebulous association with a 1960s radical--the latter it seems coming directly from right-wing FOX News host Sean Hannity. The DailyKos called it a "game of trivial pursuit." Katrina Van Heuvel at The Nation named it a "Gotcha Debate," with questions that left her "angry, frustrated, and yes, bitter." Editor & Publisher called ABC's presidential debate "perhaps the most embarrassing performance by the media in a major presidential debate in years."

The crowd actually began heckling Gibson and Stephanopoulos once the debate had ended, jeering and booing both. Journalists and media critics roundly panned the ABC debate as shameful, shoddy and downright embarrassing. By Friday, ABC had been flooded with phone calls and comments from people registering their disgust at the low brow nature of the debate. Organizations like MoveOn.org have amassed over 200,000 signatures in an online petition, and well known journalists have drafted a letter condemning the deplorable state of journalism the debate represented.

An annoyed--but rather calm--Obama by Thursday turned the tables on both his moderators and Hillary Clinton, by picking up on the popular sentiment throughout much of the Democratic base that the debate was a wasted opportunity that gave example to all that people find wrong with politics.

As The Nation noted:

"Barack Obama is clearly taking that abysmal ABC News debate in stride. He told his supporters not to fret about all the "textbook Washington" drama on Thursday, recounting the superficial moderators and Hillary Clinton's attempts to "twist the knife" on trivial issues. Then Obama made pop cultural history, miming the rapper Jay-Z's iconic hand signal to "brush the dirt" off his shoulders."

When I first saw Obama brush the "dirt of his shoulder" on a clip Keith Olbermann showed Thurday night, the crowd ate it up. Well the black crowd anyway. The older white folks smiled and clapped when prompted, but it may have been lost upon them until one of their kids explained it later. I immediately of course thought of the Jay-Z track and it was in my head all day. I was wonderin if much more would be made of it, and of course in this digital age, didn't take long before someone did the mashup.

So the question remains, is Michelle Obama really the "baddest chick in the game" and is she really wearin' his chain?

More reviews of ABC's Democratic Debate:

Robert Grunwald at TIME:

"At a time of foreign wars, economic collapse and environmental peril, the cringe-worthy first half of the debate focused on such crucial matters as Senator Obama's comments about rural bitterness, his former pastor, an obscure sixties radical with whom he was allegedly "friendly," and the burning constitutional question of why he doesn't wear an American flag pin on his lapel — with a single detour into Senator Hillary Clinton's yarn about sniper fire in Tuzla. Apparently, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos ran out of time before they could ask Obama why he's such a lousy bowler."

Tom Shales Washington Post:

"When Barack Obama met Hillary Clinton for another televised Democratic candidates' debate last night, it was more than a step forward in the 2008 presidential election. It was another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances."