Others have weighed in at length, so this will be brief….30 seconds at best, yes or no at most.
We’ve become a world of snippets — of 30-second sound bites — so I guess we could have hoped for no more substance than that, not even when it comes to the most significant issues of the day.
Complex issues and the resulting complex questions are deserving of more than 30 second snippets and Chris Matthews-forced, "I’ll have to ask you to give a yes or no" simple answers.
Yes, I realize that with 10 "debaters" (this was no debate, by the way) and limited time, there may have been few other choices than the format selected. As well, this early in the process, all of the potential players have to be invited, further forcing the format.
Yet, I have no sense now of anything more than before, except each candidate’s ability to package an answer succinctly. There was John McCain, often looking like the only one of the bunch concerned about federal spending, when the record tells differently. There too was Ron Paul, perhaps one of the few willing to address runaway spending from a constitutional standpoint, but looking old and tired.
And, everyone in between, trying to indicate that rarely does the POTUS make significant policy and national security decisions in 30 second slots, often answering ridiculous questions, sometimes answering the equivalent of high school test questions, while at the same time trying to appear Presidential for the TV cameras.
With it all said and done, I might have a better understanding of these 10 individuals if they had been asked, "Will you go see Spiderman 3, why or why not, and would you please only answer yes or no since we’re running out of time?"