ALF-CIO Forum: Your reactions…
For those who watched it, post your reactions to MSNBC’s broadcast of the AFL-CIO Forum moderated by Keith Olbermann…
August 7, 2007
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I’m boycotting it because Keith is moderating…what an outrage.
Comment by Anonymous — August 7, 2007 @ 8:39 pm
i thought keith did ok, outside debates are always a bad idea, too much noise and its hard to be heard. but i was upset that there were no questions about FISA or gonzales or rove in contempt of congress, or stuff like that.
I would rate Olbermann as a 6 out of 10. i was expecting him to do better.
Comment by Chris (My Two Sense) — August 7, 2007 @ 8:51 pm
Barry Bonds? Can someone explain the relevance of a Barry Bonds question during a presidential debate? I am a sports fan too, but aren’t there more important issues? I thought Barack Obama handled it well, but come on.
Comment by Goldfish — August 7, 2007 @ 9:21 pm
I caught maybe 20 minutes of the actual debate. The format seemed strange for a Presidential Debate. The entire crowd was wearing ballcaps and t-shirts. With all the hooting and hollering, we were joking that it looked more like the Blue Collar Comedy Tour than a Presidential Debate.
The questions I saw seemed to be summed up by one person’s question, “What’s Wrong With America?” Almost every questions was “Why Don’t We Have (free health care, more unions, better pensions, stricter regulations, etc)?” All the questions seemed to be right up the Dem’s alley. I didn’t see any candidate seriously challenged by a tough policy question.
I think Biden lost points by blowing off the coal miner widow. In fact, most of the candidates seemed to give short answers to the current question on the floor, and spend most of their time following up on the previous questions. And the big news story coming out of the debate is Hillary getting loudly booed by the pro-Obama hometown crowd.
I don’t think MSNBC did a good job with their coverage. I tried to catch the post debate wrap-up, but every time I clicked on MSNBC between 9-10pm there was a commercial.
Finally, at 10pm I figure they’ll either replay the debate or have new round of post-debate coverage. Instead it’s another freakin’ prison documentary. They can’t preempt the doc block for one night when there’s a Presidential Debate? I thought MSNBC was all about politics?
Comment by TBDave — August 7, 2007 @ 10:27 pm
TBDave, they are replaying it at the regular Countdown time, 9 PM PT12 ET. From the moments I saw, it was interesting, but I will probably repost a better review after the rebroadcast.
Comment by Chris (clind) — August 7, 2007 @ 10:42 pm
The Bonds question was the dumbest thing asked I’ve seen in a debate in a long time and that’s really saying something. Of all the problems facing this country, he had to ask a question about baseball and steroids? And I couldn’t figure out who was louder, the crowd or the candidates trying to drown one another out. One thing is for sure, Olbermann just let both walk all over him.
Comment by Alison — August 7, 2007 @ 10:57 pm
I flipped over for a second, and heard the Barry Bonds question. Obama actually gave a decent answer.
But can someone please find Keith a tailor? That was the most ill-fitting jacket I’ve ever seen.
Comment by Missy — August 7, 2007 @ 11:01 pm
Keith was good…tough to run a debate in front of that raucus stadium crowd.
Comment by James — August 7, 2007 @ 11:40 pm
Obama was the clear loser. I think he’ll soon be out of the #2 spot.
The only debate without any dumb questions was the one on FNC.
Olbermann did quite well in my opinion. I never expected him to be able to do something outside in front of a huge crowd. And he kept order and kept things flowing.
Can any of you really say he did even half as bad as Chris Matthews with the Republican debate?!? Really. Be honest.
Comment by erljr — August 8, 2007 @ 12:13 am
I think MSNBC did a decent job with a debate in a stadium with an enthusiastic crowd made up of various union memberships. Olbermann did a good job, however there were several instances where the candidate did not answer the question that was asked. I’d like to have seen him simply say - “OK, and to the question that was asked??”
I’ve watched most of these debates and they are getting a bit stale….this was nice break, however, as they were addressing a specific topic (labor, trade, etc.) for a good portion of the debate. With all these debates it would be nice if the networks could get together and draw straws on topics. They are asking questions about big issues and 60 seconds just doesn’t cover it.
Ditch the “lightning round.” 30 second answers should be limited to commercials. Give the candidates 2 minutes or so to answer quetions in depth….it would help people see who really has ideas vs. who has empty talking points. And the moderator (this is my only criticism of Olbermann) should step in when the candidate starts to rattle off on what they want to talk about versus what they were asked.
One last point - it was funny to hear Hillary Clinton say that Democrats should be united, not having this in-fighting. Memo to the Senator…that’s what these debates are for - to distingish between each candidate so party members can decide who to vote for.
Comment by FishOil — August 8, 2007 @ 1:33 am
What part of “For those who watched it” could you not understand Anon?
Comment by Mary Snow — August 8, 2007 @ 11:00 am
Better than taking a Lunesta.
Comment by RGL — August 8, 2007 @ 9:09 pm
What a joke, KO is nothing more than an uninformed mouthpiesce for the extreme left wing. The whole debate was a press confrence sponsored by MSNBC, what ever happened to NBC they need to dump KO and Joe and get some real talent.
Comment by IVET — August 9, 2007 @ 12:27 am