Share your impressions and opinions! “Sunday’s live debate between presidential candidates Arnold Vinick and Matt Santos will be far from politics — or television — as usual.”
Laurence O’Donnell, who balances work as a political analyst and a “West Wing” executive producer, said the hourlong episode represents “my wish-fulfillment debate.”
“We are using the accepted liturgy of presidential debates. It will look the same, it will be moderated by Forrest Sawyer, a real news person, it will have all that real feel to it,” O’Donnell said.
“But I think it will be more satisfying in that the candidates end up really going into the issues in a way that they normally would not,” he said. “They end up each forcing the other to get more honest as the debate wears on.” Seattle Times
The debate airs live at both 8pm ET and 8pm PT on NBC. (Yes, they’re doing the debate twice, and live, for both coasts.)
PST here….cannot wait. I love this show. It is my favorite by far. Enjoy all!
I think all the ET’s have gathered up their popcorn and are in front of the tube now. 1 minute to go!
Sorry Asian Jibberish..I had to Super Troll rate you. That Jibberish does wierd things to my puter.
mine too…
If you see those again, e-mail me and Catnip and BooMan … we can zap his comments.
And BooMan will lower the boom on him!
Someday I too dream that I’ll be able to lower the boom. Until then, I’ll stick with my handy zapping powers.
Do I get a cape?
Do you have a cape?
I have a closet full of capes in all colors and Superman-like skin-grabbing shirts with a big B on them (and pec muscle falsies to make you look buff). Satin or silk. Color? Fabric?
does anybody think this will have an influence CULTURALLY on what Americans expect out of political campaigns?
I’d like to think so, but …
Vinnick’s a flipping liar about Canadians not developing new drugs.
This is fun. 🙂
and why oh why oh WHY can’t ANYBODY ever say that the drugs developed by Big Pharma (many of which aren’t even American, but German & French companies) are done so with NIH grants, and then THEY GET THE PATENTS THAT WERE PAID FOR WITH US GOV’T GRANTS!!??!!??
<pant, pant>
please, can somebody PLEASE SAY THAT?
most of the money Big Pharma spends of it’s own money is on product development AS PRODUCT, NOT as drugs. Marketing, testing …
god, I hate how ignorant that debate always is.
we’re all on too much medication to understand much of anything.
I’m waiting for some politician other than Bob Dole to call Viagra and all the other “me too” sexual performance drugs the pharma “discoveries” of the last decade. Don’t even get me started on Vioxx, Bextra, Celebrex and all the more expensive, more dangerous, less effective alternatives to generic Ibuprofen.
I live pain-free thanks to a distant relative of Vioxx* — Etodolac (aka Lodine). It’s a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory usually used for arthritis — or, in my case, Carpal Tunnel in my hands and swelling/edema in my feet associated with Venous Insufficiency. Untreated, these conditions leave me unable to walk or use the computer, but 1 tablet every 12 hours keeps me going strong. Ibuprofin does nothing for me — I maxxed out on it a long time ago, and my tolerance now requires me to take dangerous amounts for any real effect.
*Vioxx is a COX-2 Selective Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory drug, while Etodolac is a Non-Selective Non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory drug. A more complete list and description can be found here
There are appropriate uses for a number of drugs, and I have no objection to them being prescribed and used appropriately. That means that:
Vioxx, Celebrex, etc., were mass marketed, not for the benefit of patients like you, but to influence thousands of doctors and millions of patients who had safer, cheaper, effective alternatives.
Merck hid the dangers of Vioxx because they knew it would make Vioxx far less marketable. By overstating the benefit and understating the risk, they turned the medical basis for prescribing any drug on its head.
Morphine is an incredibly effective pain killer too. For most people the risks far outweigh the benefits. Every doctor and patient must be given the information necessary to make an informed decision.
I think they should have commercials during the real presidential debates too. Pee breaks. Munchie breaks. Wiping off the stuff you threw at the teevee breaks.
Back away from Jimmy Smits, Alan. You’re pissing me off.
YOU GO JIMMY! You tell ’em what liberals have done! Ya!!
What’s Jimmy’s presidentin’ name again? Brain fart here.
Thanks catnip.
You’re welcome.
I’ll never look at Alan Alda the same again – ANWR-hating bastard!
🙂
I thought the same thing 😉
Very good actor, he plays a neocon’s role to a tee.
I wonder how many people out there watched this and think these two are really running for president.
They’ll be confused when neither of them are on the ballot on Tuesday, if they vote, that is.
Shame you can’t write in an office as well as a candidate.
So where are we live-blogging “Rome”?
I wish we had a Santos in our Party who would not back down. I loved the way he defended the term liberal. I too will pick up the label from the floor and wear it proudly!!!
SANTOS! SANTOS!
I wish our debates were really like the one on West Wing. Watching it for that small moment, I was problem to carry my DNC card.
But when I see this as a Headline, it brings me back to reality.
Alito Wins Praise From Moderate Democratic Senator Ben Nelson
That was some good TV.
I wish the presidential debates were that honest and “talking point” free.
Gotta give Laurence O’Donnell credit — Vinick (Alda) came across as an old-style free-market conservative (not neocon, not Bushleaguer) that all my old Republican co-workers would have been proud of.
Bonus points to our next Dem candidate who has reasonable sounding answers to the points Vinick raised — even Santos couldn’t give great counterpoints to some of them. (tho at least Bootribbers could — love the comments above on the drug companies).
I wonder how scripted it all was. Seemed a little chaotic at times, so maybe not so much. I think Vinnick (sp?) got the best of several of the arguments. And I thought it was too bad when the health care issue got taken over by the discussion of African economies. I certainly hope that lots of people got that information about private health insurance overhead being 23% compared to 2% for medicare. That was fantastic!!
My thoughts on the show….Very good, but I was a little disappointed in Santos delivery, he seemed to be hollow at times, rather than strong and forceful in his statements, hesitating. He said the right words tho.
Alda performed better, but his words were typical Rep. I kept wondering if Alda (Vinick) was wired as Bush was. lol.
I think Alan Alda has done more live theater which could be a factor in performing more comfortably on this stage. But I’d vote for Santos in a minute if someone like that would really be running.
I agree with you about Santos and Alda, I think he has done more live theatre and he is older than Smits so he has had more experience. I wonder if there was much difference in the shows for the two coasts..
slightly pressured or under-prepped actors. All of them left small timing gaps that would be unnatural for people speaking or responding real-time.
As a musician, the phrase “we can clean it up in the studio” comes to mind.
I have a feeling that many of us here are old enough to remember live television drama (not even counting soaps). It didn’t always go smoothly then either.
It was a little difficult to be certain from Alda’s delivery, but in touting American drugs, he mentioned that “a pill” –which on repetition became “a dollar a day” — has replaced surgery for ulcers.
If he meant the daily antacids whose marketing began saturating our airwaves some years ago, then our drug companies are indeed responsible for that. But it’s blame they deserve, not credit.
This very year the Nobel Prize went to the Australian doctor who needed to infect himself and then take his antibiotic cure to prove that most ulcers are actually infections. I was cured with the ‘ulcer cocktail’ some years ago.
My feeling is that this discovery decimated the lucrative lifetime-ulcer industry and probably is responsible for big pharma hyping all the antacid type treatments and making such a big deal of acid reflux disease, to keep up demand for those product lines.
The ads seem to be working because I almost never meet anyone who knows that ulcers can be infections. Evidently this includes the WW writers.
Thoroughly enjoyed it! Both actors did well.
I voted that Santos won the debate on the NBC poll. When I checked 70% had voted for Santos.
I’m glad to see it for the people who never look beyond the television, but I get bored easily. I did manage to watch the whole hour and gave Alan a personal Emmy award. I think the regular dramatic presentations have a more ‘real’ effect.
Me and my man, both Kucinich supporters, agreed that the fiction was totally obvious because a congressman became the party’s candidate.
Santos’s closing statement was weak. Far too many generalities.
I agree with you above who said that Alda’s considerable theatre experience was very helpful to him.
It’d be fascinating if Vinnick won the election — to see how O’Donnell et al. would write those scripts.
(I also think, for viewers, a Vinnick presidency would be a lot more interesting to watch, while a Santos presidency would be kind of (yawners) predictable.)
Sorry I’m late – I wrote a review of this on Low & Left last night.