I got involved in rating the debates through Free Press, which meant I had to watch them tonight. Overall, I was disappointed that essentially only two topics were offered for debate by Jim Lehrer, whom I respect greatly as a journalist. Although he asked eight questions, all of them were about the current financial crisis in the U.S. or wars (in Iraq, in Afghanistan, potentially with Pakistan and Iran, and the Russia/Georgia conflict). Nothing new was revealed about either candidate. The purpose of the rating is to evaluate the media coverage, demanding the moderators to ask relevant questions. Lehrer passed that test, in my opinion, but there are too many questions left unanswered about foreign policy. As a member of ONE, I wrote a letter to Lehrer last week, asking him to ask the candidates to address at least one question about the issue of global poverty. He didn’t, and they didn’t offer any ideas on their own (although they did manage to talk about health care, jobs, education, alternative energy sources/off-shore drilling and other topics, during their discussion on the financial crisis). McCain’s favorite phrase of the night was “Obama doesn’t get it” about any topic. Obviously his strategy is quite simple: he goes way back (he even quoted Eisenhower) and has much more experience. And he does–in a corrupt government.
