21.05.12

0 minutes. They call it a campaign, but it’s really a reality-TV show with eight contestants who compete for nearly a year. Each week or so, they get on a stage and are prodded to attack each other, equivocate and regurgitate sound bites. Dreadful stuff. At the end, viewers vote for one winner, who gets to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States. Welcome to Episode 11. American democracy as cheesy prime-time programming. CNN’s National Security Debate in Washington, D.C.

1 minute. After a quick introduction by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, we are lost in montage. Lots of images of war and dead Presidents. Voices from the past: A date that will live in infamy. Tear down this wall. Etc. Then the candidates get introduced, each with a sort of James Bond computer graphic that looks like an electronic onscreen dossier from Dr. Evil’s secret lab, if Dr. Evil’s secret lab was built in 1993.

3 minutes. Blitzer is back, delivering the requisite mumbo jumbo about Twitter and Facebook. He says tonight will be “unlike any debate so far in this presidential campaign.” This is what is known in the political/advertising business as “The Big Lie.” If you are selling belly-button lint, you might as well call it a mink coat. People will try to touch.

Source: TIME