HOME | BIO | MUSIC | JOURNEYS BY DJ | STUDIO BLOG | POLITICAL BLOG | BOOKING INFO | CONTACT

What unites them in outrage is the Commission on Presidential Debates, the official sounding, supposedly nonpartisan sponsor.

Don't be fooled, says Farah.

FARAH: The Commission on Presidential Debates, although it claims to be a nonpartisan organization, was created by the Republican and Democratic parties for the Republican and Democratic parties. By design, it was established to submit and conceal the wishes and demands of the Democratic/Republican nominees.

MOYERS: The result, he says, is an event tightly controlled by the candidates, a glorified press conference with rules rigged to serve the candidates, not the public.

Listen to moderator Jim Lehrer as he opened the 2000 debate between George W. Bush and Al Gore:

LEHRER [10/3/00]: Tonight, we'll have the candidates at podiums. No answer to a question can exceed two minutes. The candidates under their rules may not question each other directly.

MOYERS: Those were the rules the candidates demanded. For a reason.

MOYERS: You say that what makes these debates so valuable to voters — confrontation, spontaneity, audience size — terrifies the candidates. Why?

FARAH: Because if the candidates were forced to be confrontational, if the candidates were forced to engage in spontaneous discourse, if the candidates were forced to confront issues they were uncomfortable with, they might make a mistake.

MOYERS: That's just what happened to the first President Bush back in 1992, during the town hall debate with challengers Ross Perot and Bill Clinton.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: How has the national debt personally affected each of your lives? And if it hasn't, how can you honestly find a cure for the economic problems of the common people if you have no experience in what's ailing them?

BUSH: I think the national debt affects everybody.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: You personally.

BUSH: Obviously it has a lot to do with interest rates.

SIMPSON: She's saying, "you personally."

AUDIENCE QUESTION: You, on a personal basis, how has it affected you?

SIMPSON: Has it affected you personally?

FARAH: The President was very flustered with the question. He didn't know how to handle it. What do you mean affect me?

AUDIENCE QUESTION: What I'm saying is…

BUSH: I'm not sure I get... Help me with the question and I'll try to answer it.

FARAH: Well, this revealed much to the public that he had a very difficult time relating to everyday working people and how they are affected possibly by the budget deficit. And it's precisely because of that that the candidates decided afterwards for the next two election cycles and in this election cycle to manipulate and sanitize the town hall format.

MOYERS: The candidates got their way.

LEHRER: The audience participants are bound by the following rule. They shall not ask follow-up questions or otherwise participate in the extended discussion. And the questioner's microphone will be turned off after he or she completes asking the question.

MOYERS: What's more, town hall questions would have to be submitted in advance.

FARAH: They had every member in the town hall audience write their questions on index cards and give them to Jim Lehrer.

He would point to the individual and have him ask the question. The consequence, of course, was no matter how good a person Jim Lehrer is, he's still asking all the questions.

The audience members are just there as props. He's still picking the ones to be asked. So it shows the sanitization of the town hall format, showed the evolution of how the candidates are increasingly controlling whatever they can control to avoid mistakes.