All the senseless hoopla surrounding the upcoming Republican presidential “debate” is in keeping with the emptiness that routinely characterizes the delivery of news by the various TV channels. They are constantly looking for “breaking” news, with the result that there is hardly any news that is not breaking any more. And, when they do run out of “breaking” news, they latch on to meaningless charades like presidential debates.
All the participants — the journalists who get to ask rude and stupid questions, as well as the hapless politicians who succumb like lambs to such demeaning treatment — all train and rehearse for their respective roles. They all hope to come out on top. The questioners hope to further their own future with the TV channels, and the politicians hope to sway the voters with their clever one-liners fed to them by assorted pundits who make a living out of dishing out such advice.
One certainly hopes that these staged shows do not result in some unqualified candidate getting the nomination, or some truly deserving candidate being thrown by the wayside.
— Viswanath Jayaraman, Mundelein
