Imbecilic Tedium

The Debate in Nashville

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
CounterPunch

"The presidential campaign plummeted into imbecilic tedium last night in Nashville as Barack Obama and John McCain faced off in the second debate. The encounter took place against the vivid backdrop of economic catastrophe, the obvious failure of the $700 billion bailout to turn the tide, Tuesday's market averages hurtling into the abyss, a paralyzing credit freeze, the prospect of savage deflation and prolonged world depression.

Scant intimations of these disasters penetrated the walls of the Belmont University auditorium.....

Both men once again bravely declared they would not allow another Holocaust to happen. Both pledged constancy to Israel. Both men said that an Iran with nuclear weapons was unacceptable. Brokaw could have asked them for their reactions to outgoing Israeli prime minister Olmert's stunning disclosure in an interview with the Hebrew-language newspaper Yediot Aharonot that he thinks Israel is on a totally misguided course, should " actually withdraw from almost all the territories, if not from all the territories", agree to the division of Jerusalem and give Syria back the Golan Heights.

Brokaw didn't, though he did raise the recent British assessments from Kabul saying the West's war is lost. This elicited scant reaction from Obama who continued to pledge higher US troops levels in Afghanistan plus forays into Pakistan, whatever the opinion of Pakistan's government might be. Will anyone ask the Democratic candidate how he feels about stoking up a replication of the Iraq disaster......."