Here we go...
The media room is getting very quiet and the live feed hasn't begun, but the monitors are displaying the inside of the debate hall. Everyone is waiting for the bell to go off. I'm not waiting, I'm typing! ;)
The transcript of this debate is going to be provided in realtime by CNN, fed to all the reporters via email. I will try to determine if it will also be on their website in the same fashion.
OK...here we go:
Here come the introductions. Oh, Wolf. That was really funny. Oh, Kucinich is hilarious too. People in the media center are rolling in the aisles (not really.)
Obama begins with the distraction meme. Edwards tries to follow up by saying that he'll do everything that George W. Bush is already doing. Here comes Hillary's response: she doesn't think it's a "bumpersticker" but let me guess -- George W. Bush was responsible for not taking care of the victims of 9/11. Wait...10...9...8...and she doesn't do it! Amazingly, Hillary doesn't go on the direct offensive against GWB.
I don't understand Kucinich's answer to the question. I don't see what it has to do with terrorism.
Joe Biden has been talking about what Joe Biden would have done from the beginning. He says most of this every week on the Sunday morning talk shows, or some variation of it. What is the "V-Shaped Hull" fetish that Biden has? He keeps bringing it up, to reporters, to other debaters, presumably to his dog. He wants to end the war but won't vote no to funding them. I wonder what Michael Kinsley's response to that is going to be. I think Kinsley will call his statement irrelevant and futile. Interestingly enough, I don't think it's irrelevant.
WOW, where is Obama going with our "three decades on the Korean peninsula." Does he know which war he's talking about? What does the Korean conflict have to do with Iraq?
I think that statement by Edwards is going to generate a lot of antipathy in the next couple of days from the lady standing immediately to his left. She's got that wry smile and Obama is -- he's really -- I almost can't believe it! He and Hillary are like a tag-team defense here!
Boy, Edwards is really sticking to his guns on getting on Hillary's back for supporting the war before she voted against it. What difference does it make? She's screaming from the rooftops on her website right now that she wants to end the war, she will end the war, she won't sleep or buy any new clothes until she ends the war, etc., etc.
Richardson *almost* says: "Genocide would be terrible but hey, if it happens, it happens...."
Whew! Mike Gravel just tried to stop the slide into everyone trying as hard as they can to distance themselves from any kind of responsibility for the war. Too bad he's such a marginal candidate.
Kuchinich is absolutely faithful to his principles: the war was wrong, we shouldn't be there, we should cut off the money immediately, end the war, go home, and quit. That's one tune that Dennis Kucinich will never change.
Joe Biden is getting tough with the audience and posits a radical redefinition of our current mission: this funding is a holding initiative until a Democratic President is elected! That's a new one, even for Biden.
I have to say that right now this tremendous search for ways to characterize the war as everyone's mistake but their own, using every possible argumentative angle, is amazing. Mr. Obama: if everyone was "using their best judgment at the time" wasn't the President using his best judgment at the time? Or is Dennis Kucinich right when he says that Bush is just a liar?
Gravel just told everyone at home that the entire slate of Democratic candidates should not run for President and go home. I agree.
Is anyone but me thinking that Hillary's line of "The President misused the authority that we gave him" is starting to wear thin?
Bill Richardson is a borderline governor. Oh, make that a border governor. Bill Richardson would not build a wall and break up families, but he would increase border patrols -- presumably to stop people from coming across the border and reuniting them with whatever members of their families are on their side of the border. Someone needs to do a check on the idea that it "takes about 13 years."
"Being Commander In Chief Requires You To Occasionally Be Practical!" -- Joe Biden. Nuff Said.
Wait a minute, Barack. I thought the big immigration problem we had with Canada where the Democrats were concerned was that so many of them wanted to LEAVE America and GO to Canada.
Wolf Blitzer just asked the Democrat equivalent of the Evolution question from the first Republican debate. Obama gets a big round of applause with some good-sounding bromide that I didn't hear (but it was based on being a Uniter not a Divider) by making sure that we don't call English the official language. Hillary makes it clear what it is based on: you need to have translators, and those translators require education, and that education requires public funding, presumably, and government oversight to make sure that everyone has a translator! That's why English won't unite us -- because it won't unite enough people in needing government oversight and intervention to make sure everyone has a translator.
Edwards is really going after everthing Hillary Clinton tonight. He just hocked a huge loogey at Universal Health Care. And in a reprise of the first attack, Obama is the rebuttal guy. Is this some kind of a freaky pattern that's emerging: Obama as Hillary's defender?
I'm just utterly aghast at the unfolding health care debate except possibly for Bill Richardson's answer, which at least has the virtue of being a bit more pragmatic. And the visuals of Edwards and Obama fighting with Hillary in the middle is just becoming too much to bear right now. But at least Kucinich is consistent: profit is the root of all our problems.
Hillary Clinton: We need more gay and lesbian arabic linguists to fight the war on terror! Why, Hillary? Why was the Congress so uniformly opposed to allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military?
Joe Biden's been in the foxholes with gay soldiers in the military? When did that happen?
OK: Second handcount of the night. On English as the national language, everyone says no (except Gravel). On gays in the military, almost everyone votes yes. Let that be the headline in humongous point type on the front page of the New York Times. The choice between Democrats and Republicans couldn't be clearer.
Gravel is really incredibly avuncular. I just keep thinking of those "Dutch Uncle" stories from my childhood.
Hillary makes the world's problems sound as though the main thing needed for everyone is a big vacation in St. Kitts and a couple of hugs. And her husband will be the "roving ambassador" of hugging.
The Democrats are divided between making gasoline less expensive and making it more expensive. I don't know what to make of any of their positions, except that it's predictable that we've heard the words "record profits" once again. Wolf is right back at 'em with a "price gouging" question -- and Richardson asks for more investigatory power and a "conservation Apollo program." All the Democrats want to investigage the oil companies. Nobody so far has used the word "nationalize" the oil companies yet, but let's wait until 2012, perhaps.
Sorry, I skipped the first questions and came in at the end of Dodd's response. I'll be reviewing the transcript when I do my commentary writeup over the next 24 hours.
Amazing: Barack Obama comes out against elements of the Medicare Prescription Drug bill. Bill Richardson makes a proposal that actually sounds pretty sane: why not let veterans get care at any hospital they find most easily accessible? I don't think that's such an outrageous idea. In fact, it may be the best single idea that anyone in this debate has put forward.
Here comes a tough question: Iran. Hillary -- isn't the diplomatic option exactly what has been happening through the United Nations on Iran? And hasn't Iran laughed at virtually every attempt at diplomacy through the world's premier diplomatic body?
Joe Biden says that Iran is a decade away from being able to weaponize a nuclear weapon. Does anyone in this entire world believe that?
Hillary Clinton phoned the White House with advice that would have improved the situation in Pakistan and it "fell on deaf ears?" I hadn't read that in any of her press releases. When did Hillary Clinton visit Pakistan and try to help Musharraf undermine the Taliban and al-Qaeda?
Darfur is the elephant in the room. None of the prospective candidates are talking about the root causes of the problems in Darfur. People should really watch the press conference the other day by their ambassador, who flatly denies that there is genocide and blames George W. Bush for calling it a genocide.
Does anyone really believe that the U.S. boycotting the Olympics will cause the Chinese to end their strategic oil alliance with Sudan? I have to say that while it's usually a negative attribute for a candidate to sound as angry as Joe Biden just did, I wonder what Joe Biden's reaction would be if George W. Bush actually tried to commit 2,500 troops (NATO or otherwise) and use American military power to enforce a no-fly zone. What would he say to the members of his base that would call it another example of American imperialism? Or should we wait until 2008 and a Democrat is elected President? Hmmmm.
"What is the definition of Rich?" I'd say the definition of rich is whatever answer Hillary Clinton will give to that question. That's going to be rich. Actually, Obama's answer really gives it away when he talks about "spending the money wisely." Because by definition, any time you expand the government you waste half the money being used to expand it, if not more.
[At this point, I'm going to cut off my live and somewhat off-the-cuff commentary. I'm sure there are going to be interesting moments in the next 15 minutes but I'm going to decamp for the Spin Room and save the rest of my commentary for a more organized post in the next day. In the meantime I'd like to get over there a little bit before the throng.]
Update:The Spin Room is basically winding down at this point and I have dozens of photographs to upload to Flickr. I also have some audio and video that I need to process, and a lot to write about the goings-on in the Spin Room. You can expect all of those tomorrow morning. Although I was only able to ask two direct questions in the Spin Room, it was generally because I was holding back a little on the questions and trying instead to get a feel for how the room operates. I learned a lot, and during the Republican debate I'll be really putting it to use. In the meantime, it's been a very long day. I'll have the rest at first light tomorrow!
to the genocide question really sucked!