La politique Française déja me manque!

I already miss French politics.

In the French presidential debate last month (I blogged about it here), the two debaters were seated, facing each other across an enormous X-box. It was a deliciously confrontational setup, much better than two podiums at an angle, and way better than stools-in-the-round (although this last arrangement is the best possible for de-evolving into fisticuffs!). The two moderators, as I recall, could barely get a word in edgewise, as Sarko and Ségo went at each other like bulldogs. If you'll notice, there are two enormous clocks on the unoccupied side of the table, keeping close track of how long each spoke. (If there were a third clock for the moderators, it might read 00:35 or something.) By the end of the two-hour debate, the clocks were each close to 56 minutes, I think, and not more than 60 seconds apart. I remember being impressed with the parity of the debate, and the restraint of the moderators.

I mention all of this because last night CNN aired a debate last night between all eight Democratic Presidential candidates. And though CNN didn't keep a running ticker of each candidate's time, the Chris Dodd campaign did, and released the following handy bar chart:


Predictably, Obama and Hillary lead the way in allotted time, with JohnJohn Edwards holding down third. I know a bunch of people who will be stoked that "Lucky Charms" Kucinich got more time than Biden, Dodd, and Senator "Who? Mike Gravel? Wait, who?". But cast your eyes to the rightmost bar, which illustrates exactly how succinct moderator Wolf Blitzer was. Almost 14% of the debate's jibberjabbering came out of his mouth, more than all but two people actually running for President, and as much as the bottom two (Biden and Gravel) combined. I'm sorry, but that is too much. As I said at the dinner table tonight, I have come to hate the section of the Venn diagram where American politics and American media overlap, except for the little portion of Daily Show goodness.

P.S. Yes, we all knew that Kucinich finally got married a couple of years ago, but did you know that he married a babe? Both figuratively and literally, I mean, in that she is 30 years younger than him, and also a super good looking redheaded tall (6') woman. From the very cursory internet search I just did, it appears she is sort of hippy-dippy and slightly airheaded. Oh, I wish he had a chance.