By a show of hands...

Ah, more debate. With Kucinach still in the race; does it get any better? It could, probably, if the candidates weren't reduced to having to raise their hand every other question. Come on, asking for a show of hands is something you use to decide who wants to go to the Mexican place to eat verses the Chinese one, not to determine who thinks English should be the official language of the United States, and certainly not to discern candidates concerns about the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy.

How frustrating.

But there were a few gem questions like Wolf Blitzer asking seriously, "what would you do with Bill Clinton?", then looking according uncomfortable, uneasily realizing the flaw of the question as he turned to Hillary Clinton to ask the question again. I admit; I'm easily amused, and still in college and fairly young, so I find it perfectly acceptable to laugh at ill phrased questions such as that. So I giggled again when Bidden explained his disagreement to the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy as uniquely as he always manages to with stating about once you're in a hole, your not asking the other guy next to you whether they are gay or not. He meant foxhole, and I'm sure everyone knew it... everyone who has grown up at least.

For a two hour debate without commercials, overall I thought:

• there was too much Blitzer talking, especially when he insisted on repeating other folks' questions.
• Blitzer referring to everyone else by their title and last name, and referring to Clinton as Hillary for some of the debate was inexcusable.
• Gravel was uncomfortably angry the entire time (maybe because he's polling below 1%?), which made me sad and angry because I had totally essentialized all Alaskan folk as basically being cold, but very still very HAPPY versions of hippies (especially with the Men in Trees drama awhile back). So basically, my illusions are shattered; 'plow guy' doesn't exist, and certainly there isn't a sweet and simple Patrick guy waiting for me, and Jack is just a lie. Alaskans are actually apparently even grumpier then we all are.
  
• Obama really doesn't know how to talk about policy. And I got out the line ''we need a po-litical solution, not military one" before he did, so score one for me, but probably minus a lot more for him.
  
• Clinton starting to answer every "if you were president" question with, "when I'm president" was a phenomenal move on her part. Similarly, her stating for everybody involved which questions they will all answer was exceptional. This was a great technique to try and get us not to focus on how she is claiming that, "if she knew then what she knows now" she would not vote for the war, BUT she somehow still contends that she was fully briefed before she voted, and that she knew all the facts.
  
• Bidden impressed me with how he talked about Darfur, and reminding everyone of the urgency to act now ("as we sit here talking, 50,000 will be dead in Darfur"). Similarly, my mouth is still hanging open that Richardson apparently feels intervening with the Beijing Olympics to stop a genocide would be a "disproportionate" action. Seriously??
• Kucinich admitting he wouldn't kill Bin Laden if given the opportunity (assassination bad, following laws good), probably lost him any long shot he had in this race, but I admire him (yes, some more) for answering honestly, and for sticking with his principles.
  

And the best part, what does Kucinich want to do during his first 100 days in office? Aww, "reshape the world for peace". I'm getting images of Sandra Bullock, William Shatner, and Heather Burns explaining her favorite "date".

Hey, the republicans are about to go at it now; we shall see if they will make me laugh or cry more.

I'm not quite sure why my last post is so catastrophically weird and hard to read, but hopefully it will never happen again.