Tuesday Reads: Clash of the Clowns IV

Good Afternoon!!

The passengers in the GOP clown car have another date with destiny tonight. Yes, another Republican debate, this time hosted by Fox Business Network. It should be worth watching just to see if the rest of the other clowns beat up on Ben Carson after his first week of “serious” media scrutiny.

There will only be eight participants in the main debate tonight. Chris Christie and Mike Huckabee have been demoted to the kid’s table, so we won’t have to listen to their fulminating in prime time. Sad sacks Lindsey Graham, George Pataki, and Jim Gilmore didn’t even make it into the kiddie debate. The participants in the main event are Donald Trump, Ben Carson, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Carly Fiorina, John Kasich and Rand Paul.

I’ll put up a live blog tonight for you to post your reactions if you’re watching. I plan to watch at least the first hour. If it’s entertaining I’ll try stick it out for the whole thing.

The debate will be streamed on the Fox Business Network and Wall Street Journal websites. Lindsey Graham still isn’t quitting, according to CBS News.

Graham will be weighing in during the debate on an app called Sidewire, which bills itself as a mobile-based social platform. The Wall Street Journal notes that posting on Sidewire “is limited to about 300 ‘newsmakers.'” App users will be able to see Graham’s running commentary, but only those newsmakers will be able to ask Graham questions.

Here are three the five things Politico thinks we should watch for in tonight’s debate. Read the details on each at the link.

A Bush-Cruz tag-team?
Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz are starkly different candidates – one an establishment favorite with a patrician pedigree, the other a tea party bomb-thrower who’s made a career out of antagonizing leaders of his own party.

Yet, on Tuesday night, they may end up being debate partners….

Trump vs. Carson
Those who’ve followed Donald Trump’s debate style closely have noticed a distinct pattern. Near the start of each debate, the real estate developer and television celebrity will open with a “big blast” against one of his rivals. In the first showdown, it was directed at Rand Paul. In the second, at Jeb Bush. And in the third go-round, at John Kasich.

This time, his target seems certain: Ben Carson….

Fox Business’s time to shine
Nearly two weeks after CNBC stumbled, Fox Business, a newer and less established business network with a smaller viewership, has an opportunity to prove itself as a debate host.

Those who have been briefed on the network’s plans say it wants its debate to be what CNBC’s wasn’t: Policy-focused and chaos-free….

The other two items are about whether Christie can make any impact in the undercard debate and whether the reduced number of candidates in the main event will mean more “fireworks” among the participants.

There’s a good op-ed at The Washington Post by Matthew Jordan, an associate professor of media studies at Penn State: Ratings-driven presidential debates are weakening American democracy.

Televised presidential debates originated in the 1960s, during TV’s golden era. But back then, networks ran news divisions at a loss in exchange for being granted a licensed monopoly over public airways by the FCC. Candidates, in exchange for the publicity, answered hard questions posed by moderators.

Today, the rules of the debate game have shifted to reflect a new media reality, one in which broadcasters have a powerful financial interest in promoting debates centered on entertainment, rather than substantive discussions of policy issues.

In fact, today’s debates can be likened to World Wrestling Entertainment: there are heroes and villains, winners and losers, entrance themes and announcers, drama and intrigue (will Biden show?) — even an “undercard.”

Like it or not, the democratic process has been usurped by an endless, ratings-driven spectacle. And for networks — with the debates’ stripped-down production costs and high ratings — it’s like hitting the mother lode.

Check out the rest at the WaPo.

The Guardian also has an interesting article on tonight’s debate: Republican debate: TV moderators face candidates after media-bashing debacle.

Recent attempts by some Republican presidential candidates to control the questions they are asked in televised debates has been likened to the behavior of Russian and Syrian presidents Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad by a senior adviser to rival GOP contender John Kasich.

With tension still running high between several of the top Republican hopefuls and mainstream media outlets ahead of Tuesday’s presidential debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, John Weaver, the chief strategist of the Kasich campaign, has accused rivals for the party’s nomination of in effect adopting dictatorial tactics. “I don’t think it’s for the candidates to dictate how the moderators frame questions – that would be comparable to Vladimir Putin or Assad,” he told the Guardian.

Weaver said that in his personal opinion some of the questions that had been put to candidates in previous Republican debates could have been worded differently. “But at the end of the day, candidates are competing to be president of the United States, not for a post in the Boy Scouts. If you can’t handle questions from moderators – whether they are easy or tough – then what are you doing here?”

Tuesday’s GOP debate at the Milwaukee Theatre will open at 8pm CST as the fallout of the last such debate hosted by CNBC last month continues to reverberate in conservative circles. Following on from feisty exchanges betweenMegyn Kelly of Fox News and Donald Trump in the first Republican TV debate in August, the CNBC event erupted into open hostility from several of the candidates in response to what were perceived as “gotcha” questions from the moderators.

Ted Cruz complained that the candidates were being treated as if they were in a “cage match”, and Marco Rubio dubbed the media “Hillary Clinton’s Super Pac.”

I think “cage match” is a pretty good characterization of what we’ve seen so far in the GOP debates.

I’m still fascinated by the Ben Carson phenomenon. The latest media focus has been on his tale of getting fooled by a parody article that appeared in a Yale humor newspaper when he was a student there. I really wish reporters would focus more on Carson’s cluelessness about government and policy, but I have to admit it’s interesting to see what a fabulist this brilliant brain surgeon is. Here are some of the links I’ve been saving.

Mediaite: Sh*t Ben Carson Says: The Complete Collection, by Tommy Christopher.

Mediaite: Why Is the Conservative Media So Unwilling to Admit That Carson Has a Brian Williams Problem?

Kevin Drum: Ben Carson’s Psychology Test Story Gets Even Weirder.

Ana Marie Cox: Ben Carson Thinks You’re the Crazy One.

Buzzfeed: Yale Classmate: We Did The Prank Test That Ben Carson’s Talking About.

Politico: Christie on Carson scrutiny: ‘I don’t have a whole lot of sympathy.’

Think Progress: Ben Carson Blames Drug Addiction On ‘Political Correctness.’

I also want to call attention to a story at Politico today; it’s about a Ben Carson obsession I hadn’t heard about before.

Ben Carson’s Roman fixation, by Nahal Toosi.

Ben Carson doesn’t have a detailed foreign policy platform, but he does have a clear worldview: the evangelical precept that the greatest danger facing America is moral and spiritual decline at home — a decline he often compares to a Roman Empire collapsing under the weight of its own perfidy and corruption.

“If we continue our fiscally irresponsible ways, coupled with our arrogance, there exist no other possibility than self-ruination,’’ Carson wrote in a column last year. “As was the case with the Roman Empire, our fate is in our hands.”

In another discussing the re-emergence of Russia, he wrote: “While we Americans are giving a cold shoulder to our religious heritage, the Russians are warming to religion. The Russians seem to be gaining prestige and influence throughout the world as we are losing ours. I wonder whether there is a correlation.”

Just last month, during a rally in West Memphis, Arkansas, Carson again mentioned the Romans in warning against fiscal irresponsibility and running up the national debt.

Carson’s views may be simplistic — Rome did not fall in a day, after all, and its long decline was caused by a wide array of interlocking factors, including overexpansion, an East-West split and attacks by outside forces. Yet his explanations strike a chord with conservative Christians already attracted to the retired pediatric neurosurgeon for his compelling life story and opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage. Those same voters also appreciate other foreign policy mantras espoused by Carson: that the U.S. must hold fast to its Christian ideals, always lead on the world stage, and use overwhelming force against Islamists who threaten its way of life.

Read the rest at Politico.

I’m going to end there, because I’m really late today. This time it’s my car–the exhaust system has to be fixed/replaced. I had to take it to my mechanic this morning and I won’t get it back till tomorrow morning. Plus, I think I’m coming down with a cold. Ahhhhhhhhhhh!

I’ll have a live blog up before 8PM. Now, what stories are you following today?