I didn’t watch the ABC Debate. I hear the moderators were awful. The following topics apparently did not figure prominently:

The financial crisis
The collapse of housing values in the US and around the world
Afghanistan
Health care
Torture
The declining value of the US Dollar
Education
Trade
Pakistan
Energy
Immigration
The decline of American manufacturing
The Supreme Court
The burgeoning world food crisis.
Global warming
China
The attacks on organized labor and the working class
Terrorism and al Qaeda
Civil liberties and constraints on government surveillance

Flag pins, on the other hand, were deemed significant. Our media is just truly, truly horrible.

Update

Tom Shales: In PA Debate, The Clear Loser is ABC.

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.

For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with.

The fact is, cable networks CNN and MSNBC both did better jobs with earlier candidate debates. Also, neither of those cable networks, if memory serves, rushed to a commercial break just five minutes into the proceedings, after giving each candidate a tiny, token moment to make an opening statement. Cable news is indeed taking over from network news, and merely by being competent.

Update #2 Hunter and Doghouse are on this:

Hunter:

It seems impossible, but we may yet have an election season in which we can be in a slogging, five-year-long war, and mention the fact only in glancing asides. We may yet have a series of Republican-Democratic debates in which the most pressing issues of the economy are entirely ignored, so that we can more adequately explore the “patriotism” of the candidates as expressed by their clothing. We may have yet another campaign season carefully orchestrated to leave all but the most glancing and hollow of themes untouched, while our press achieves multiple orgasms at every botched line, every refused cup of coffee, every peddled character assassination or character assassination-by-proxy peddled by the sleaziest of paid dregs. A campaign, in other words, perfectly suited to the bereft, rudderless, and substanceless self-pronounced guardians of our democracy.

Doghouse Riley:

OKAY, now let’s say you are The American Broadcasting Company, Inc. You’re owned, fittingly, by the Walt Disney Company, the second largest media corporation in the world, with $35.51 B in revenue last year. And the best you can do is Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos? The Wal-Mart version of Charles Kuralt, and a guy whose career can only be explained by America’s continued love affair with Talking Chipmunks? They didn’t just grill the next Democratic party nominee for President on Bosniagate, Wrightgate, Bittergate, and flag pins, aka All The Important Issues; Gibson nearly went postal over Effective Capital Gains Tax Rates, a matter it has to be difficult to get his accountant interested in this year.
. . .
Incidentally, this sort of thing is the product of Charlie Gibson being groomed for a week so he can mouth this sort of thing. It’s not his response to some errant comment or candidate’s evasiveness; this is what a roomful of people came up with for Charlie Gibson to bring up.

The polls seem to be all over the map in Indiana – about the most you can say is that it’s reasonably close between the two Presidential candidates. But, generally, I’ve seen the polls showing Clinton up on Obama between 5 – 9 points. However, there is an LA Times/Bloomberg poll showing Obama over Clinton in Indiana by 5 points (40 – 35). The poll of 687 Hoosiers was conducted Thursday through Monday. The guts of the poll are here (PDF – page 8). 19% were undecided and 6% said they’d vote for someone else.

Hoosiers tend to think that Obama has the better chance of beating McCain (37 Obama, 18 Clinton, 28 equal chance.) Obama is basically tied with Clinton for the female vote and the Democratic vote and pulls into the lead with the male vote and the independent vote. Hoosiers list the economy, Iraq, and health care as their 3 top issues. The poll finds that, in Indiana, Clinton is hurt by a perception that she is a person of less honesty and integrity than Obama (20 to 52). However, Hoosiers think she has a better grasp of trade issues (48 to 27) and a slightly better approach to health care (41 to 34). Unsurprisingly, Obama crushes her in the “would substantially change the way things are done in D.C.” category (51 to 18).

But, it’s one poll; there are lots of undecideds; and other polls give Clinton the edge.

A little something for Buzzcut and his love of Michelle Obama. (I kid because I love.) Basically, Michelle’s roommate at Princeton was raised as a racist southern cracker, but got over it. . . and became a lesbian.

Dana Milbank:

So much for the liberal media.

John McCain and Barack Obama both appeared before the nation’s newspaper editors yesterday. The putative Republican presidential nominee was given a box of doughnuts and a standing ovation. The likely Democratic nominee was likened to a terrorist.

Tim F at Balloon Juice:

Over the last month I found out that Barack Obama is a Muslim, that he is captive to his pastor at the United Church of Christ and that he is a Marxist. Talk about transcending! Normally any one of those things would necessarily exclude the other two.

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

If you throw in fantasies like Iraq’s WMDs, Saddam’s ties to 9/11, the Laffer curve, the War on Christmas, creationism, climate denial and the easter bunny small government Republican, modern conservatives make the red queen look like a piker.

Obama says that people in Pennsylvania are bitter and frustrated about the economy; politicians don’t respond to the economic frustrations; so, the people turn to things like immigration or guns or antipathy to people who are different from them as a way to express their frustrations. John “son of a son of an admiral” McCain, whose family wealth is estimated at about $100 million, calls Obama an “elitist.” Hillary calls him “out of touch.” Obama responds deftly:

I doubt it was planned, but that response almost looked like he was playing a rope-a-dope; fishing in McCain and Clinton before taking their heads off. (If I might mix a few metaphors.)

Meanwhile, Evan Bayh, concern troll, chimes in:

“The far right wing has a very good track record of using things like this relentlessly against our candidates, whether its Al Gore or John Kerry,” Bayh said, “I’m afraid this is the kind of fodder they might use to harm him.”

Might I suggest that if certain DLC members of the Democratic Party weren’t so busy putting their fingers to the wind and were more concerned with taking members of the aforementioned far right wing and busting them in the chops from time to time instead of cringing in fear of them; the right wingers wouldn’t have such a good track record.

Update John Cole responds to Bayh’s concern trolling (and a lot of other stuff, Cole has a half dozen posts that jump down the virtual throats of the Clinton campaign). Bayh: “I think superdelegates need to weigh this when making their decisions blah blah blah.”

Cole:

I think the super-delegates should consider that Hillary may have killed Vince Foster. Additionally, I think super-delegates should look at the fact that Hillary will gut her own party in her naked pursuit for power. Also, Hillary is a rich liberal elite whose husband fucks other woman. Regular Americans won’t be able to relate to adultery, and it could be used against her in the election by “the far right wing.” By the way, I heard some Republicans talking about someone named Mark Rich. I think the super-delegates should keep that in mind when they make their choice.

On a serious note, I do actually like Evan Bayh, but is it just me, or is he the worst concern troll ever?

Update 2 Mary Beth Schneider and Bill Ruthart have an article on the brouhaha for the Indy Star. Hoosiers seem largely unfazed:

James Anderson, a 60-year-old Ford Motor Co. retiree from Anderson, said he heard Obama’s comments on the news, “and I wasn’t offended at all.”

He’s seen firsthand the disappearance of manufacturing jobs in Indiana, he said, and knows the toll it’s taken on folks.

Initially, he’d supported Clinton, but he said he was turned off by the “misinformation” she spreads. Now, he said, he’ll vote for Obama, “the only one who’s going to represent America.”

Dr. Kathleen Beache, a 44-year-old dentist from Indianapolis, said she’s a Republican who listens daily to conservative talk shows.

She said she read the complete remarks Obama made and didn’t take offense. She does, though, take offense at how Obama is being portrayed.

“They’ve been trying to paint Barack Obama as an arrogant person and hoping that that label sticks,” Beache said. “It’s time they stop that nonsense.”

But Clinton’s shots at Obama resonated with Al Newsom, a 58-year-old Allison Transmission worker who said he decided to vote for Clinton after hearing her talk Saturday.

“I believe her on this, because I’ve listened to Senator Obama before, and he’s really out of touch with the American worker,” Newsom said.

But Wayne Davis, 55, a machine operator at Allison, said he didn’t buy it.

“Senator Obama was a working folk himself, and outside of the realm of campaigning, I think her view would change,” said Davis, who is leaning toward voting for Obama. “I’d like for them to focus more on the issues and less on the other candidate.”

John King, 68, a retired railroad worker in Indianapolis, said, “I think Obama and her have got to keep each other’s names out of their mouths. They need to conduct a nice, orderly Democratic campaign.”

Of course, this is just people listening to the candidates directly. We need to wait until it gets filtered through the media news personalities for 3 to 5 days and they get a chance to hyperventilate about “regular people” for awhile.

No husband likes to be the second man in his wife’s life, but in this case, I’ll make an exception. Amy went to see Obama last night. She got me a ticket, but then child care became problematic, so I stayed home to take care of my kids. How’s that for family values? Anyway, I’d say “giddy” is a fair description of Amy’s reaction to Sen. Obama. She posted pictures and everything.

The Journal & Courier also has an article, but, between you and me, Amy’s is better.

My wife has a nice account of the process of getting tickets to see Obama in Lafayette when he comes tonight. Complete with pictures. I had hoped to go myself, but looks like I’ll be staying home to take care of the kids. Family first.

That’s o.k., she took care of the kids when I wanted to go do this:

Filed Under: 2008 Presidency

This, in a nutshell, is McCain’s plan for U.S. involvement in Iraq.

McCain has said that we must stay until we have victory in Iraq. Victory means a stable and secure Iraq where no U.S. troops are getting killed. And, once U.S. troops are no longer getting killed, we can stay forever.

Barack Obama will be speaking at Lafayette Jeff High School on Thursday.

Road to Change Town Hall with Barack Obama

Jefferson High School
Marion L. Crawley Athletic Center
1801 S. 18th St.
Lafayette, IN 47905

Thursday, April 10th
Doors Open: 4:00 p.m.
Program Begins: 6:00 p.m.

Tickets for the Town Hall can be picked up at:

Obama for America’s Lafayette Field Office
216 N. 4th St.
Lafayette, IN

Village Coffee House
100 Northwestern Ave.
West Lafayette, IN

Free tickets will be available beginning at 12:00 p.m. on April 9th.