|
COPYRIGHT 2008 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Last Wednesday's two-hour televised smackdown in Philadelphia between the two remaining Democratic candidates for President, which might have been billed as the Elite Treat v. the Boilermaker Belle, turned into something worse--something akin to a federal crime. Call it the case of the Walt Disney Company v. People of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (and of the United States, for that matter). Seldom has a large corporation so heedlessly inflicted so much civic damage in such a short space of time.
None of the other debates had been models of philosophic rigor. But, right from the start, there were clues that the sponsor of this one--ABC News, a part of the ABC network, which is owned by Disney--might establish new benchmarks of degradation. After brief opening statements from the candidates, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, ABC immediately cut to an advertisement for a cell-phone company. A commercial? Already? Were candidates for President of the United States being used as teasers?
After the break, one of ABC's moderators, Charles Gibson, asked Clinton and Obama to "pledge now" that whichever of them wins the Presidential nomination take the runner-up as his or her running...
Read the full article for free courtesy of your local library.
|
Bookmark this article
Print this article
Link to this article
Email this article
Digg It!
Add to del.icio.us
RSS
