Rebuttal

I’m not all that interested in the presidential and vice presidential debates, to be honest. Does that make me some sort of irresponsible citizen?

I started watching the first Obama-Romney debate and just got really bored a half hour in and started reading. I caught about the first two minutes of last night’s Biden-Ryan debate and turned it off and started reading. I was mostly bitter that Parks and Recreation was not on. Diane Sawyer called it “one of the most important vice presidential debates in history.” Faint praise.

It didn’t help last night that they immediately started going on about Libya and the recent troubles. I’m sorry but I just don’t care. I’m barely aware of what’s happening there — I know a few people died and there was some unrest — but it seemed like it blew over rather quickly. I’m not terribly interested in foreign affairs anymore. If it’s something like a war in which our soldiers are involved then that’s certainly worthy of attention but if it’s just unrest in one region of the world, I just feel like it’s one goddamn thing after another over there and those countries can solve their own problems. We have far more pressing domestic problems and I’d rather see a debate about that.

Am I shallow? Do I not care? I do care about who governs this country, of course, but I’m not sure the debates are the best forum for that, at least not this election.

There’s just been so much attention paid to the posing that goes on in debates. The general consensus was that Romney won the first debate because of his forceful attitude and that Obama lost because he just sort of stood there like a limp banana. The general consensus was right but the analysis was just so surface-oriented. Both candidates are coated in a thin layer of bullshit, because that’s how politics works, and I would rather read the post-mortem analysis of what they said rather than tune in for the theater.

In particular, Romney explained his economic plans but they still didn’t make sense to me. So what’s the point of declaring him the winner and praising his assertiveness if it’s still basically bullshit? There are better ways to weigh one candidate against another and it’s not some tabloid-esque analysis of every smirk and sigh the candidates do at the podium.