Gravel Flames Out in Last Night’s Debate!
We previously showed the video of Democratic candidate Mike Gravel staring into the camera for a minute before throwing a huge rock in a pond. Here is the other crazy video he shot, the one where he lights some branches on fire and they subsequently proceed to burn on camera for a solid 7 minutes. Feel free to not watch the whole thing! Once they start burning you won’t miss anything.
Gravel totally went senile at last night’s debate at Howard University right from the get go. He went totally off topic twice as he lashed out on the war on drugs. Amidst his crazy ranting he did bring up some good points-the war on drugs is a failure and has flooded our jails while not decreasing the amount of drugs in this country.
Gravel provides needed comic relief in what can be boring debates but he seemed particularly whacked out last night. He seemed like a cranky old man who was just ranting off topic. He seriously seemed like he didn’t give a shit and I was half way expecting him to just throw off his microphone and say “I’m tired, I quit.”
The last question of the night was classic. He had only 15 seconds to respond and he spent 10 seconds adjusting the microphone and then saying “Can you hear me now?” It was the perfect ending to Gravel’s night!
5 Comments
Mike Gravel was totally ON topic when he brought up the drug war in response to the AIDS problem. Think it through: if needle drug addicts could go to their doctors and legally get treatment instead of being thrown in jail, then the result would be that fewer people would get AIDS from dirty needles. How is that off topic in any way?
I have to say i disagree with your view of his performance. Mike Gravel was passionate and he got huge applause from the crowd when he brought up the iraq war and it’s link to the problems of poverty and inequality. Watch the debate highlights again and then say he looked like he didn’t give a shit. Really? And why didn’t any one of the other candidates mention the word iraq at all last night?
I’ll agree with you that he was on topic in the correlation between Aids and the failed war on drugs.
And yes he was very passionate when he spoke, I didn’t mean he didn’t give a shit in that he didn’t care about the issues. It’s just that he was being combative and seemed seriously out of it. Come on, you didn’t notice that?
As for other candidates mentioning Iraq: Dennis Kusinich did, he said he would pull us out.
And as for the reaction from the crowd, yeah Gravel got some applause but there were plenty of people laughing at him too. My wife and I were both laughing on the couch.
Of course he was combative. Of course he looks crazy. But you gotta dig deeper. Why does he seem so crazy? What is he yelling about?
i laughed too the first time i saw him in the debates back in April, and it was mainly because i couldn’t believe that they let him in.
I was sure that he had pranked the organizers of the debate and made it seem like he wasn’t about to go on stage and say something like: “We lost the iraq war the second we invaded based on lies.” Like it was a call in radio show and he had fooled the call screener into putting him on the air.
I was cracking up at first. But after that i looked into his proposals and plans for our country and found them to be consistent with my own view of reality to a shocking degree:
He wants to put aggressive diplomacy to work in the middle east. He stands up vigorously for an end to the arms race with Russia and China. He gets mad when people are dying and other people don’t do anything about it. Wow, so do I.
Should i go on? He wants to bring an end the unfair income tax code. He believes in equality for the gay community. He doesn’t accept millions of dollars in donations from hedge funds and said “if they did give me any money all they would get in return is good government.” He announced a plan to force an end to the war in 60 days: Stop negotiating with Bush and call a vote in the house and senate every day until we the people can pressure our representatives to get enough votes to override the veto. Wow, that is so crazy. Over ride the veto? End the war? Checks and balances? That seems so out of it. How did someone so out of touch with reality ever even get into these debates?
Want more crazy from Mike Gravel? He has proposed a crazy thing called the national initiative for democracy, in which we the people would become the senior branch of government, and we’d be able to vote on national ballot initiatives, thus becoming lawmakers ourselves.
Given all this craziness, of course he is going to stand out and look like a total wacko. But why is it that the media and even cool blogs don’t ever look any deeper into the question of “what’s up with Mike Gravel?” than to say simply: ” he’s crazy. ”
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. i guess i am insane for continuing to read the news and expecting them to give Mike Gravel a fair shake one of these days without saying “look at the yelling crazy man.” While never quite mentioning what he was yelling about.
Did you notice that the associated press article that got syndicated out to most newspapers simply stated “Mike Gravel and Dennis Kusinich also debated.” ?
Mike Gravel, the man everybody is calling batshit crazy, is the sole person responsible for ending the war in VietNam.
He also is the reason that the Pentagon Papers aren’t stil classified.
How did he do these two remarkable feats. By doing the batshit crazy things that work.
He filibustered the draft for FIVE MONTHS. That’s completely nuts – but it worked when three administrations in a row promised and failed to get us out of VietNam.
He read the Pentagon Papers into Congressional Record so that they couldn’t not be public. In a late night marathon reading.
So, now here he is again – proposing some more Frickin’ Crazy ideas. That no one really wants to admit are actually the only way things can work.
He’s proposed a bill to outlaw the war in Iraq. That’s insane. Until you look at history and see that we used to actually declare wars. WWII was the last one. Back then we could rescind a declaration of war – but when no war has been declared, all we can do is cut funding…. and hurt the troops.
Unless some freakin batshit crazy man comes out of nowhere with a plan to make the war illegal. A plan in which we can get out of Iraq AND still keep our troops in supplies an armor.
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Also, Why shouldn’t we get angry? Why is being upset about the atrocities going on around the world suddenly a bad thing. Frankly, I’m glad somebody up there is a little outraged.
I totally agree with you on his substance. I think Mike Gravel has some excellent ideas for this country and is trying to shine light on all the bullshit that is going on in Washington.
And for that I am glad that he is part of the debates because it re-news my faith in “democracy.”
Your obviously very passionate about Gravel and honestly I like him too. But there are 2 reasons why I wrote what I did: 1)I do believe he was pretty whacked out the other night-way more so than other times and 2)I try to be funny on this site sometimes, so this piece was more about being funny than actual substance of character.
I’ve only recently been covering the candidates (minimally)because I don’t agree with how they run so far in advance of the election and waste so much money. It’s disgusting.