The Final Debate (Hopefully)…Or How I Spent An Hour And A Half With A Total Ass Clown

Well, we've finally reached the last of 20(!) Democratic debates. No new ground broken. Nothing learned. Obama could've had a better night, but held his own and delivered a few good lines. Clinton didn't deliver a knockout punch to Obama. In the circumstances that makes it a win for Obama.

The most remarkable thing about the night was Tim Russert's bottom-of-the-barrel performance as co-moderator. When I heard last week that he and Brian Williams would be moderating I groaned, knowing it was going to be a tedious night. Sadly, they didn't disappoint. 

The absolute nadir of the evening was Russert's grilling Obama on Louis Farrakhan's recent words of support. Not only did the gasbag play gotcha with Obama, but the skeeve took the opportunity to gleefully reiterate some of Farrakhan's choice hateful phrases. Russert proved beyond a shadow of doubt what many in the blogosphere have said for some time now: that's he's a total ass clown.

Thankfully, and to his credit, Obama handled it pretty well. Initially he was a little soft in his distancing, but toughened up late in the exchange, giving a great rejoinder to Hillary when she piled on in an obvious and cringe-inducing pander to the Jewish community, saying not only denounced Farrakhan's support but rejected it as well. (You really had to see that particular exchange to get how terribly Clinton came off and how well he parried her semantic bullying.)

It was a childish and dishonorable series of questions, clearly the lowest point in a pretty lousy debate filled with them. 

******

My favorite debate commentary of the night comes from a poster over at Burnt Orange Report:

MSNBC is carrying the debate. My prediction: I will throw something at the TV as I yell at Tim Russert within the first 20 minutes of tonight's debate. If I could have one wish for tonight's debate, it would be for that gasbag to be met with a similar fate as South Park's character Chef.

Second favorite from DailyKos diarist MissLaura:

Last thread, Scout Finch said:

"I'm not sure which is worse.....Russert moderating or Matthews analyzing afterward."

Well, now we know what's worst of all: Russert and Matthews analyzing it together. Two such stupid men so pleased with themselves, their grins wrapping around their entire damn heads as they stroke each other's egos.

But the best serious commentary is from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo.

Choice cut:

I discussed this in the live debate blog. But I think it's worth going back and watching Russert's run of shame here. I would say it was borderline to bring up the issue of Farrakhan at all. But perhaps since it's getting some media play you bring it up just for the record, for Obama to address.

That's not what Russert did. He launches into it, gets into a parsing issue over word choices, then tries to find reasons to read into the record some of Farrakhan's vilest quotes after Obama has just said he denounces all of them. Then he launches into a bizarre series of logical fallacies that had Obama needing to assure Jews that he didn't believe that Farrakhan "epitomizes greatness".

As a Jew and perhaps more importantly simply as a sentient being I found it disgusting. It was a nationwide, televised, MSM version of one of those noxious Obama smear emails.

Here's a clip of the debate: