{"id":929,"date":"2012-10-03T13:34:06","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T13:34:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/megalextoria.wordpress.com\/?p=929"},"modified":"2012-10-03T13:34:06","modified_gmt":"2012-10-03T13:34:06","slug":"open-up-the-debates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2012\/10\/03\/open-up-the-debates\/","title":{"rendered":"Open up the Debates!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tomorrow night brings the first presidential debate, and with it, new debate drinking games. Politico and Vanity Fair already have some suggestions, as do the proprietors of debatedrinking.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cI drink to make other people interesting,\u201d proclaimed George Jean Nathan, H.L. Mencken\u2019s literary partner in crime. That sentiment helps explain why self-medication has become almost essential to these exercises in American civic life.<\/p>\n

So stock up on the hard stuff: The \u201czinger\u201d shootout tomorrow in Denver promises to be the same old stale, stage-managed affair. That\u2019s the way the Demopublican duopoly wants it, and the Commission on Presidential Debates \u2014 the gatekeeper corporation set up by the two major parties in 1986 \u2014 makes sure the duopoly gets its way.<\/p>\n

For tomorrow, the CPD has settled on the same fellow who moderated the first debate in 2008, PBS\u2019 Jim Lehrer. Lehrer inadvertently provided one interesting moment last time, when he asked the candidates: \u201cAre you willing to acknowledge, both of you, that this financial crisis is going to affect the way you rule the countryas president of the United States?\u201d<\/p>\n

That was a cringe-worthy way to describe a constitutional officer for a free republic, yet very few people cringed. Neither Sen. McCain nor Sen. Obama objected to the idea that it\u2019s the president\u2019s job to \u201crule the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

After all, by October 2008, it had become clear that whoever won would, as Yale Law professor Jack Balkin observed, \u201cinherit more constitutional and legal power than any president in U.S. history.\u201d President Obama would go on to expand those powers still further, with a secret \u2014 but apparently expansive \u2014 interpretation of the Patriot Act and targeted killing of American citizens, among other innovations.<\/p>\n

Gov. Romney doesn\u2019t present much of a contrast to Obama on the foundational issue of whether it\u2019s the president\u2019s job to \u201crule the country.\u201d Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, a former two-term governor of New Mexico, does. He\u2019s against targeted killing of Americans, he supports repeal of the Patriot Act and an end to the War on Drugs.<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s on the ballot in some 47 states, and he\u2019s registered more than 5 percent support in a couple of national polls. But he\u2019s locked out of the debates.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s \u201ca rigged system designed entirely to protect and perpetuate the two-party duopoly,\u201d charges Johnson lieutenant Ron Nielson. Nielson is biased, of course, but he\u2019s not wrong. The major party organizations created the CPD \u2014 its first co-chairs were the chairmen of the Republican and Democratic parties \u2014 in order to seize control of the debates from the independent League of Women Voters. The scam worked: The League pulled out in 1988, decrying \u201ca fraud on the American voter.\u201d<\/p>\n

Full article: http:\/\/reason.com\/ar \u2026 \/open-up-the-debates<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow night brings the first presidential debate, and with it, new debate drinking games. Politico and Vanity Fair already have some suggestions, as do the proprietors of debatedrinking.com. \u201cI drink to make other people interesting,\u201d proclaimed George Jean Nathan, H.L. Mencken\u2019s literary partner in crime. That sentiment helps explain why self-medication has become almost essential to these exercises in American civic life. So stock up on the hard stuff: The \u201czinger\u201d shootout tomorrow in Denver promises to be the same old stale, stage-managed affair. That\u2019s the way the Demopublican duopoly wants it, and the Commission on Presidential Debates \u2014 the gatekeeper corporation set up by the two major parties in 1986 \u2014 makes sure the duopoly gets its way. For tomorrow, the CPD has settled on the same fellow who moderated the first debate in 2008, PBS\u2019 Jim Lehrer. Lehrer inadvertently provided one interesting moment last time, when he asked the candidates: \u201cAre you willing to acknowledge, both of you, that this financial crisis is going to affect the way you rule the countryas president of the United States?\u201d That was a cringe-worthy way to describe a constitutional officer for a free republic, yet very few people cringed. Neither Sen. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}