Sirened

Last night the Democrats held their third debate at Howard University, an African American University in Washington, DC. The timing of the debate was ironic as it came the same night that the Supreme Court made a 5-4 decision that could lead to the re-segregation of schools. After all, Bush has a no white child left behind view on education.

So the 8 Democratic candidates found themselves staring at a large audience of educated African Americans who were wondering, what exactly do you plan on doing to help our cause?

In one of the most poignant moments of the debate, Hillary Clinton said “You can look at this stage and see an African American, a Latino, a woman contesting for the presidency of the United States. But there is so much left to be done, and for anyone to assert that race is not a problem in America is to deny the reality in front of our very eyes.” This drew perhaps the loudest applause of any statement in the debate. It sounded good, but what substance was there in that statement in solving anything?

Sadly, the person who spoke with the most substance is the elfish looking Dennis Kusinich. Kusinich said that the United States needs to stop being a war-like imperial nation to free up money to address domestic problems. Of course, being elected president is somewhat of a popularity contest (along with a who can raise the most money contest) so Kusinich doesn’t have a chance in hell of winning.

At times, some of the Democratic candidates looked like a deer in headlights trying to answer some of the questions. Especially when some questions only allotted them 15-30 seconds to answer. It’s hard to come up with a bullshit response in such a short period of time. Although Bill Richardson insisted that he should have more time as moderator Tavis Smiley told him he did not. It didn’t look good-it kinda reminded me of Al Gore sighing during one of the 2000 presidential debates while George Bush was talking. Come on, your a politician, you gotta know the game!

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