I was curious about the presidential debate tonight but too scared to watch. Well, no, not scared exactly. Bush makes me physically ill. I don't want to feel ill. I don't like feeling ill. I didn't want to watch. Nevertheless, curious. What to do? Why, load Atrios a dozen times, read his take as well as the bulging comment threads.
Are they too partisan, though? Seeing what they want to see? I have to check for myself. Turn on the TV. Can't stand Bush's fake bonhomie, though, don't want that voice in my ears. What to do? I've got TiVO. Rewind reality, go back half an hour, watch a bit of Kerry here and a bite of the moderator there and go one click faster to watch Bush speak without hearing a word. I even know enough to switch channels to go to a network that's got the split screen action happening. Fascinating to watch the candidates listening to each other.
Now I know what they're talking about on Atrios. Now I feel like I've seen the debate. Only took about ten minutes (I didn't actually listen to everything Kerry said, just enough to hear his voice and know his tone and a few select things he had to say). A summary. Painless. Kind of fun, even. Technology can be your friend.
I think I know how I'm going to spend the evening of November 2nd.
Posted by Tamar at September 30, 2004 09:32 PMI know exactly how you feel about being physically ill due to George W! That's exactly my reaction as well - his smirk, his voice, his entire demeanor just make me sick to my stomach. Whenever I hear him on TV, I have to change the channel because I just can't stand his presence. My partner & I attempted to watch a bit of the debate last night but couldn't stomach more than about 5 minutes of it. Much better to see the blurb summaries or read the transcripts than subject ourselves to that mockery of a leader.
Posted by: jms at October 1, 2004 12:07 PMI just hope you're right about November 2nd. It's promising now, but only promising, and I keep waiting for the October surprise.
But I *am* starting to look back, in a visualize-success kind of way, on that magic Election Night of 1992, which I spent in the Castro in SF, dancing in the streets. If *that* was a party, a repeat this year would be less a party than an emergence from a horrific plane crash. We'd have to blink and spend years recovering, given that 4 years of Shrub have already done more damage than those 12 Reagan- Bush years we were dancing away then.
Posted by: Chris at October 2, 2004 07:07 AMUm, Chris? I never said Kerry would win. I hope to god he does and I agree with everything you said, but all I meant was that I plan to use blogs and TiVO to filter my election night news. I think this election is still very much up in the air and the suspense is wrenching.
Posted by: Tamar at October 2, 2004 08:27 AM