by ....© 2000, Kimit A. Muston
I suppose all of America is anxiously awaiting Tuesday night and the first of the three Presidential Debates. It will be carried by so many stations and networks it'll be hard to miss.
Unless you own cable. Or are watching NBC.
NBC has said they are very sorry but they are contractually obligated to broadcast the baseball playoffs on Tuesday night. So while the responsible citizens of the strongest nation on the face of the earth will be fulfilling their social obligations by choosing the most qualified man as their leader, most males will be watching the game.
Major League Baseball might have considered moving the start time of the game forward ninety minutes, to make room for the debate, but baseball is big business. And, as we all know, capitalism beats democracy every time. If you have any doubts about that try calling a politician if you haven't donated a lot of money to his or her campaign.
The primary advantage to not having NBC covering the debates is that at least we won't be subjected to any of those grotesque, over-produced personality profiles they used during the Olympics. So there will no shots of Al Gore standing on a sea side cliff, with the sun behind his head, and no shots of George W. Bush leaning on a fence post, smirking pensively.
It is also likely that the networks covering the debate will get straight to the action, thus reducing the amount of commercial time they lose while doing their civic duty. So Tuesday night we should get a dose of actual democracy, with a minimum of glitz and glare. Except, of course, for the post debate spins.
You already know, of course, that neither Al Gore nor George Walker Bush is going to be telling the truth, because if they told the truth the debate would be four minutes long, including introductions.
How do we lower the cost of oil? Use less. How do we improve our schools and military? Spend more. How do we save social security without increasing taxes? We can't.
You might think it odd that given the obvious solutions to these problems the candidates would be spending eighty percent of their time talking about them. In debating circles this is known as "Beating a Dead Horse." And there are reasons behind this equine postmortem assault.
In the first place, no politician ever got elected by telling voters, "I agree with him." So if Al Gore says the sky is blue, Bush will say it is subliminal. And if Bush says water is wet, Gore will say he invented water.
And in the second place no politician ever got elected by telling voters, "I have some bad news."
This is why Bush tells you he can give away $1.6 trillion, increase spending for health care, prescription drugs, schools and the military, and still have money left over. Bush uses four single dollar bills to explain this bit of legerdemain on the campaign trail. If he tried to do it with his fingers he'd have to take off his shoes.
And it also explains why Al Gore suggested selling oil from the strategic reserve three short months after he said that would be a bad idea. The truth is the entire strategic oil reserve will power America just about long enough to explain how useless the strategic oil reserve actually is.
As a one time debater and a husband who has lost numerous arguments in my own home I would like to offer you a simple tip so that you might receive the full democratic experience while watching the debate.
A debate between politicians is actually like having an argument with a teenager about cleaning their room. They lie about the obvious (i.e. "Yeah, I cleaned it") and you can't make sense of anything else they say, (i.e. "Well, I couldn't clean up, I didn't have a new CD.")
The dialog consists mostly of what psychiatrists call "indicators", which means what the candidate says is not what he means. It all becomes clear only if you know the key phrases and what other phrases they are standing in for.
"I disagree with my opponent", actually means, "This big bugger-head wouldn't know a tax cut if it bit him on the bottom", while "I'm afraid my opponent is stretching the truth", actually means, "I'd like to punch smirk face over there right in his smirking face."
See, isn't this better than baseball?
Kimit Muston is a writer sweating in North Hollywood. If you have comments about his columns, you can reach him at editor@inditer.com