Who's the Biggest Blowhard?
Back in high school when we did debates (oh, please, we're all nerds here) the whole idea of a debate was that each side got a certain amount of time to elucidate their points. I guess I never noticed that the candidate debates were different because, frankly, they really only function to break up my drinking on a random weekday night and thus I have no sense of time anyway. But some poor research schlub at the New York Times got together with Lauren Appelbaum of NBC and noticed that the popular kids get to talk the most , which I think officially makes the debates more like student government or Model UN than the debate club. Nonetheless, Obama and Clinton each yakked more than twice as long as Kucinich, and Giuliani and Romney bloviated for twice the time Duncan Hunter did (though Ron Paul get a full hour to spew his personal brand of Crazy). So, can we then stop calling them debates and start calling them commercials or something? Because they're obviously just earning speaking time based on popularity as opposed to having a real debate. Kthxbai. [ NY Times ]