plumbing the shallows

Late evening and I was absently listening to the BBC World Service when the US Presidential debate (round 2?) came on.

I wasn't intending to listen but kind of got sucked into the vortex. Careful citizen questions and bland answers. I was genuinely surprised that even compared with the UK's foray into similar formats, this took the biscuit for not saying anything.

Or rather, what crumbs it did provide were so non-specific that it was actually quite difficult to get a taste of anything tangible. Romney, in particular, just described revisionist views of his past and tokenist views of how things could be.

Kind of: "I'll make sure the sky is blue and the sun shines, except when we need the rain. It'll all be fine."

It was keyword politics. Find a keyword in the question and play back the nearest mp3 response. Not the whole track, just the requisite verse.

An exhibition of the classic three Ms of media, money and marketing driving outcome, playing to candidate like-ability with a mere hint of domestic (let alone international) agenda.

In fairness, I thought Obama unloaded a little more content, but maybe they should just introduce some judges and an X-factor style red X over the candidates to guide them toward more (excuse the deliberate X-factor word) "relevance".

Aside from the presumed electorate fatigue after 18 months of television, I can't understand how this superficial debate determines leadership of a world power.