A few comments on tonight’s Democratic debate

So I half-watched the Democratic debate tonight. I wish these guys would just stick to the questions instead of sneakily trying to change the subject – they were much better about it tonight than before, but Bill Richardson was particularly bad about it, and I’m sorry, but Hillary Clinton blustering her way through answers as loudly as possible so as to get around both argument and being told the time was up was really a turn-off. It rather reminded me of a certain family member who believes that talking louder (and through) whoever you’re arguing with is both an effective and ethical way of getting your point across. Senator Clinton wasn’t that bad, but she really didn’t impress me – it’s the same tactic I see GOP talking heads use every time they’re on a news show debating a liberal, and only in the last several months have I seen commentators telling them to wait their turn. I think the tactic has about run out of steam (and listeners have run out of patience).

The CNN pundits are saying that Clinton won the debate – granted, one of the ones saying Clinton won was James Carville, who, as a former strategist for the Clintons, may be a little biased toward his old friends, and the other one saying she won was J. C. Watts, who, as a conservative and former Congressman, may simply be gleefully hoping she’s the one that runs. Bill Schneider, whose political commentary has always seemed relatively sane to me, thinks that Edwards and Obama won, having “had the best moments”. I tend to agree with Schneider here – I think Clinton came off as pontificating and throwing out too many marketing-slogan sound bites, whereas Edwards and Obama were clear, organized, respectful in disagreement, and looked less packaged. I do wonder if their “respectful disagreement” was a way of paving the way for a joint ticket, but either way, I felt that both of them were being more genuine in what they had to say.

I’m not a Clinton-hater – I just don’t think Hillary is electable as president, and that’s not because she’s a woman. I think the way she was painted during her husband’s administration by the right-wing smear squad has unfortunately colored her national image for some time to come, but even over here on the left, I can pretty safely say that most moderate liberals, and anyone left of those, are not really interested in her attempts to subtly evade having made a mistake when she voted for the war in Iraq (actually, what most of us would really like to hear is “we knew better, but we were wusses and willingly drank the Kool-Aid”, but that probably won’t happen – face it, a good number of us, in the lead-up to the war, without the benefit of National Intelligence Estimates, knew what was going on with the Bush administration. And so did they, no matter what they say. This is where Obama gets big mileage for simply admitting to having common sense). I found her answers to the war on terror, where she tried to present that “tough in the presence of enemies” attitude, offensive, and rather Liebermanesque. Senator Clinton better be careful here – I think she’s repeating the mistakes of the past 6 years by trying to display this “I’m tougher than all y’alls on national security” stance while at the same time trying to sound anti-war; the liberals aren’t the only ones who are sick of the lip service, and I think Americans – not just liberals, but almost all of us – are about fed up with the dishonesty and ass-covering. You can’t have it both ways, Senator – if you choose both, you get none.

Edwards was really impressive in this regard, and I think his comments about honesty played very well. I do wish they’d let Gravel talk more, though – I have to admit that I’d rather see he and Kucinich as running-mates (if they were electable) than the others, simply because they’re right; since they won’t be chosen, though, I wish they were allowed to push the candidates into uncomfortable situations more. In some sense, this forces candidates to answer to the liberal left (or simply to the common sense folk) and play off the script some. But anyway, I thought Edwards was really impressive this evening, and Obama was good at keeping his message clear as well. If I had to pick who’d won between the two of them, I’d say Edwards, but it was a close thing.

That said, the pundits’ comments make me wonder about one thing… In the past couple of primaries, I’ve been unpleasantly surprised by the “inevitability” of the front-runner, even when my sense of who was winning – and my sense of who other liberals I knew wanted – was very different from what the media said was conventional wisdom. I knew almost no one in 2000 who wanted Gore as the democratic nominee – now, I think Vice-President Gore is pretty damned awesome, and this time, I really hope he does in the end run; but in 2000, he made the mistake of listening to too many slick advisors, and presented this guy who just didn’t seem genuine. And John Kerry? I’m sorry, but I’ve talked to a lot of people, and we all agree that most grass-roots folks were not interested in John Kerry as the front-runner. Howard Dean was really who grabbed most people’s attention, and I think that whole non-news with the “Dean Scream” was completely baffling – it didn’t seem any different to me that any other excited politician, and I never understood where his fall from grace came from. This does lead me to wonder if I’m either completely out of touch with the moderate liberals in this country (my approval of Kucinich excepted ), or if, in the end, the primaries are decided before they happen. And if Clinton wins this time, I’m really going to wonder, because I have to tell you, within my personal acquaintance, I know of approximately zero people who are excited about the idea of Senator Clinton as the Democratic candidate. The folks I see who are most excited about it are either former Clinton administration officials, or oh, I don’t know, Bill O’Reilly.

So if she’s the candidate, I’m either really wrong about this country, or I’m wrong in thinking that anyone’s vote counts. We shall see. I didn’t think she won – or did particularly well tonight – at all. But again, maybe it’s just because she reminds me of this particular family member.

As a side comment about Al Gore, since I mentioned him above – I think Al Gore is a bright guy with a Hell of a lot of integrity, and he has a knack for presenting tough issues to the general public in an understandable way. I also, from recent interviews, think he really gets what’s wrong with the media, and what happened when they all turned into massive wussbags and started presenting only what the administration wanted them to present. Those are useful skills. If he ran, if he could win, it would be one small step toward renewing hope. (And maybe, if we’re lucky, he’d help reinstate the Fairness Doctrine – then again, I’d elect almost anyone who’d give the Fourth Estate back its collective gonads…)

But one last comment about the debate, and this is what I really wanted to write about to begin with.

The following (paraphrased) question was posed to the candidates, and you hear it again and again in various guises, and I don’t understand why candidates don’t see the logical fallacy inherent in the question:

Given the recent discovery of a plot to blow up JFK airport, and the fact that we’ve had no terror attacks on U.S. soil since September 11th, don’t you think maybe the Bush administration is doing something right?

Ok, candidates, since I just know you’re reading this post, here’s how to answer that question… it’s the first thing you learned in statistics:

Correlation does not imply causality.

Say it with me again, folks… Correlation does not imply causality.

For the JFK plot, and the Fort Dix plot, and what not, let us remember that the administration has spent a lot of time advertising these plots by supposedly dangerous terrorists, when many of them were “only in the planning stages”, and a lot of them were being planned by folks who didn’t have the brains to carry out their plans (of dubious quality). I have no idea how serious the actual plot was, and frankly, I don’t think we can trust either the media or the government to tell the truth (which is sad, because if they are being straight, no one will ever know. I suspect they never read that story about the boy crying wolf, but anyhow…).

And, by the way, let’s give the intelligence services some credit. They’ve helped keep us out of this kind of trouble before, and one of the main reasons the Bush administration wasn’t on the ball for 9/11 is because they weren’t listening to the intelligence services. So I think it’s fair to just credit these guys for doing their job if these new threats are credible in the first place.

So anyway, let’s leave the JFK thing out of this and go back to addressing the main question, which is if we should give the Bush administration credit for the fact that we haven’t had any terrorist attacks since 2001. To this, you should probably respond that, with the exception of the first WTC bombing in 1993, we didn’t have any before that either. Why should we assume the Bush administration has anything to do with the fact that we’ve had none since?

Correlation does not imply causality.

The real problem is this: Many things have not happened since the Bush administration came into office – dinosaurs have not roamed the Earth, we have not been obliterated by an enormous meteor, and somehow, those evil secular humanists have not removed freedom of religion from the constitution. Now, the degree to which the Bush administration has attempted to ensure that these things have not happened probably varies (I personally think they’re working really hard on the dinosaur issue), but just because something has not happened does not mean the administration’s policies prevented it.

Say it with me: Correlation does not imply causality.

Candidates, seriously, next time one of you gets this question, let the public know what a stupid question it is… Kucinich was dead on with his Ben Franklin quote, and it’s time the rest of you stopped accepting the propaganda Kool-Aid when the press feeds it to you! USE THOSE BRAINS!