TL;DR

     There’s quite a menagerie to American politics. At one end of our zoo, there are the donkeys and at the far right, the elephants. Neither are very cleanly creatures, and both of them—like monkeys—have a tendency to fling feces. Candidacy itself is described as a horse race, and candidate debates have turned into a dog and pony show. For their part, the media are parrots, repeating what is told to them and squawking every time they want ratings. (If you care for a reference, see Nancy Grace to the left and Bill O’Reilly to the right.) The publics are like sheep and everyone involved has a tendency, like ostriches were once said to do, to bury their heads in the sand when real issues are raised.

No, Noah. They're not worthy.

     But, please, don’t take my word for it. The January 26 CNN debate will speak for itself. Or not—sure, there was a lot of talking, but even the media do not seem to be quite sure of how much was actually said (viz Proverbs 29:20*).

     I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t watch it. The pomp was just too much, and we’re in an age of technology, after all. It was just too easy to close the youtube window. It was then I was forced to wonder if this represented a problem with the American publics’ attention span or the usefulness of political reporting. Maybe we should check the polls.

     I’d have watched it in real time, but—like many young Americans—I have a real job. Instead, I went to the transcripts, where the audience isn’t subjected to the fake smiles and peacock feather fluffing.

     There were plenty of cockfights that the media gobbled up like hungry swine, but the overall quality was sloppy. With pretty, overarching phrases like, “secure the border,” “free trade,” and “immigrant grandmother,” we didn’t get much more than those 8-second sound bites for the media to play until we’re sick of hearing them.

     In the first question (“Can you tell me what specific actions you'll take to address the costly consequences of illegal immigration while preserving the rights of those who seek to immigrate legally?”), only Ron Paul gave a real response. Santorum spouted a lot of crap about securing the border, following laws, and sanctions against employers. Gingrich basically agreed, adding that legal immigration should be easier to acquire and gave an endorsement to his consorts in big business—American Express, Visa and Master Card. (Someone got laid for that… proverbially, of course.) Romney stood by self-deportation. None of them gave details or answered how they would accomplish these goals or with what resources. Save for Paul, who clearly and succinctly said that we should stop focusing on other countries, and place the resources there back home. (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/push-it-somewhere-else-patrick)

     If you know anything about history, you’d remember that that was Rome’s version of self-preservation. Something about not overextending oneself with conquest and performing baseline defense. Good strategy. A classic.

     Shortly thereafter, we get to the prettiest cockfight of the debate, one that no one watching or reading the news can seem to escape. Like a freshman repeating the first incident wherein a professor cursed in class, the media can’t seem to get enough of Romney’s overuse of the phrase “inexcusable.” It wasn’t even as good as the Sicilian’s equally abused, “inconceivable” of the Princess Bride. Nevertheless, Gingrich and Romney fought bitterly over the former’s use of the superlative (“most anti-immigrant candidate”) in describing the latter.

     Not to say there was any real political consequence to this clash. In the end, people won’t—read: shouldn’t—be swayed to vote in their primaries either way based on the few-minutes clip of their posturing.

     And the real problem with the American media is that they focus on events outside of real consequence. Not just events.

     At this point a question is asked concerning relations with Latin American countries. There is some tension here between Paul and Santorum, wherein Paul suggests free trade as an answer and Santorum suggests “closer ties.” Paul responds cattily (the animal puns keep coming!) that Santorum doesn’t define his idea of closer ties and accuses that closer ties involve “that we impose ourselves, go and pick the dictators, undermine certain governments, also sending them a lot of money.”

     Santorum responds that Paul “obviously wasn’t listening to” his closer ties argument.

     Let’s pause for a moment and go back to history. Iraq is close enough that you don’t have to do any real research. We took out a dictator that was, by Santorum’s terms, “a threat” to democracy. We have tried to mold them into “friends who want to engage and support America, who want to be great trading partners and great allies for our country.” And to do so, we imposed ourselves, picked the dictators, forced democracy (read: undermined certain governments), and threw a lot of money at it to “accomplish” these noble goals.

     Who, Mr. Santorum, was listening?

     Now, we get to another catfight. Romney accuses Gingrich of having another consort (he does get around, doesn’t he?) in American big business—Freddie Mac, who reportedly hired him to maintain the marriage and strength of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (the only marriage he’s been able to save). Gingrich responds like any upset 2^nd grader—with an ad hominem attack.

      “Well you have stock in these companies. Who you calling cootie queen, you lint licker?” Okay, I might have paraphrased.

     In the end, Romney plays dumb. He did this just before the Fannie and Freddie fight, concerning an ad about Gingrich, wherein he accuses Gingrich of calling Spanish, “the language of the ghetto.” He claimed he didn’t recall the ad, and CNN researchers quickly hunted it down, proudly endorsed by Romney at the end. In this case, he claimed that his finances were “managed by a trustee”—must be nice, huh? So, it didn’t matter that he made millions of dollars in the housing bubble. It wasn’t his fault, right?

     In the end, they both looked like asses—with or without the animal puns.

     Now, in the animal world, we get to see a prime example of the fight or flight response. Observe:

     Returning from commercial break, Blitzer confronts Gingrich about his response to Romney’s finances. Here, we see flight. Gingrich calls it a nonsense question, and with sweet-talk unrivaled by lyrebirds in courtship, implores the moderator to skip the question.

     Now, we see fight! Like a proper predator, Mr. Wolf sticks to his guns and quotes Gingrich in saying Romney, “lives in a world of Swiss bank and Cayman Island bank accounts.” Shrewdly as a snake and with the innocence of a dove, the moderator pointedly adds, “I didn’t say that. You did.”

     I’d paraphrase here, but I can display Gingrich’s horror no better than he, himself. “I did,” he admits. “And I'm perfectly happy to say that on an interview on some TV show. But this is a national debate, where you have a chance to get the four of us to talk about a whole range of issues.”

     Romney skips the dove part and strikes like a cobra. “Wouldn't it be nice if people didn't make accusations somewhere else that they weren't willing to defend here?”

    Well, sir, wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t say that to exploit over quoting in the media for face time?

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*(NIV) "There is more hope for a fool than someone who speaks without thinking.