Did CBS end the debate early?

Politico said: "CBS ends Democratic debate with seven minutes to spare" ("CBS brought in the second Democratic debate seven minutes under time... The candidates began their closing statements with more than 10 minutes to go until the scheduled 11 p.m. conclusion"). And various more incendiary sites said things like "Democrat debate so boring CBS ended it seven minutes early."

But I think it was planned. Look at the transcript. The moderator, John Dickerson, was doing commercial breaks like clockwork throughout the 2 hours. He even said "We've got to take a break or the machine breaks down." After that, he set up the "final segment," which wasn't "closing statements" (as Politico put it), but a focused question that precluded a canned statement: "What crisis have you experienced in your life that suggests you've been tested and can face that inevitable challenge?" When that was done, Dickerson didn't say good-night or act as though they'd ended early. He said, "All right, back with some final thoughts in a moment."

What followed was very weird, but obviously planned. With the candidates still on stage but the debate now "in the books," Dickerson brought out Major Garrett to report on the CBS "partnership with Twitter," which made it possible to identify "the most-talked-about moments for each of the three candidates." What got the most tweets?

It was Hillary Clinton, "when she defended her integrity on campaign contributions and mentioned 60% of her donors are women." I imagine there were lots of tweets of the ooh-Hillary's-mad variety or "Ouch!" Bernie Sanders's moment was "I'm not a socialist compared to Eisenhower." And Martin O'Malley's height of tweetability was also taking a shot at someone not on the stage, the phrase "immigrant bashing carnival barker Donald Trump." The candidates stood there smiling as the Major delivered the results. O'Malley, who seemed boyish throughout the debate, smirked and gave a thumbs-up. Yeah, I'd like to see him cop that attitude when Trump is there to punch back.

For some reason, CBS decided it would be cool to do a partnership-with-Twitter dance and that Major Garrett was the guy to twirl with Twitter. The candidates didn't opt to leave the stage. They put up with the absurd theater of saying who won.

And by the way, when I heard Major Garrett say that Hillary "defended her integrity on campaign contributions," my immediate outburst was "Assumes a fact not in evidence!"

There's a vast robot conspiracy against Hillary.

Look what they did to her retweet of some sweet puff piece at NBC with the headline "Hillary Clinton's Campaign Is Powered By Pizza, Analysis Shows":



"Probably the most unfortunate dot dot dot in any political retweet, ever...."

"We hang over each other’s heads, more and more heavily, self-appointed swords of Damocles waiting with baited breath to strike."

I'm trying to read "The Decay of Twitter" — an article in The Atlantic critical of the way people write on Twitter — but what about the way people write in The Atlantic? That sentence, quoted above, may be the worst sentence I've read in the last 10 years.

First, what the hell is "baited breath"? Avoid clichés and you won't have this problem, but FYI, it's "bated breath." No one uses the verb "bate" anymore, but it's like "abate." If you have "bated breath," you're holding your breath. If you have "baited breath," maybe you've been eating fish, but it has little to do with acting like a sword hanging over everyone's head.

But a sword of Damocles can't be waiting and looking for things to strike at. The sword of Damocles hangs over the one person who's sitting under it. (So don't sit there!)



The sword has no mind and makes no decision about when to strike. It hangs by a hair and will, when the hair breaks, fall only on the person who's under it. The sword doesn't become progressively heavier, nor does it "appoint' itself.

You shouldn't be using these clichés in the first place, but using them without thinking about what they mean and what images you're creating is atrocious — especially in an article that purports to critique writing.

"Are you a comic-book version of a moderator?"

From my son John's live-blog of last night's debate:

8:26 — Moderator John Harwood lists what he apparently considers to be some of Trump's more ridiculous proposals, including that he'd "make Americans better off because your greatness would replace the stupidity and incompetence of others." Trump agrees with that last point: "Right!" Then Harwood asks if this is "a comic-book version of a presidential campaign." Trump says: "It's not a comic book, and it's not a very nicely asked question." [VIDEO.]...

9:39 — Rubio is asked about an analysis by the (conservative) Tax Foundation, which said his tax plan saves twice as much for people at the high end than the low end. Rubio denies it and says the opposite. [Added later:] On Twitter, Harwood had said he was "CORRECTING" his "earlier tweet" about the Tax Foundation's analysis of Rubio's tax plan. Harwood's correction said: "Tax Foundation says Rubio benefits lowest 10% proportionally more (55.9) than top 1% (27.9%)." Then Harwood asked Rubio a question that said the opposite of that correction, and when Rubio correctly pointed out that Harwood's incorrect post had to be corrected, Harwood flatly denied it! I asked Harwood on Twitter:

Are you a comic-book version of a moderator?

I took a screen shot:



ADDED: Here's the relevant material from the debate transcript:
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"I am convinced... that the way the Drive-Bys and the Democrat Party and the left are attempting to reconstitute their media monopoly is via Twitter and Facebook."

"In a way, the sewer of Twitter and Facebook is the left attempting to corral everyone into their playground, their way of thinking, and create a new legacy media to replace what the big three networks had back in 1988. You populate Twitter and Facebook with enough political activists disguised as citizens in their underwear in their basements just tapping out comments and posting left-wing news stories from AP, Reuters, Washington Post, New York Times, and that's how you reconstitute your monopoly.  You don't constitute a network media monopoly, but you constitute a mode-of-thinking monopoly by transferring your polluted, perverted way of thinking to social media to infect as many minds as possible who are incapable of critical thinking anymore, because it isn't taught."

Said Rush Limbaugh on his show yesterday, in a monologue his website titles "The GOP Establishment Comes Undone: Romney Pines for the Days Before Rush, the Alternative Media, and Conservative 'Insurgents.'"

It's interesting when Rush turns on new media, because often he presents himself as the original new media person, leading the way. The line "citizens in their underwear in their basements just tapping out comments" jumped out at me as I was listening to the podcast last night. That's the classic image used to diminish bloggers and other self-publishers of the internet. But, reading the text this morning, I see he's accusing people on Twitter and Facebook of fakery, only pretending to be citizens in their underwear in their basements. He's diminishing them by saying they're not just citizens in their underwear in their basements tapping out comments.

Well, that's funny, because Rush likes to act like he's just some guy thinking out loud into a microphone. He's just the "little fuzzball," alone in his little room somewhere in Florida, shuffling papers around, sharing snippets from from AP, Reuters, Washington Post, New York Times, and reacting, telling you what he thinks. He's "disguised" as your extra-smart, chatty friend, watching the news with you and sounding off. He knows all about "transferring your his polluted, perverted way of thinking to social media radio to infect as many minds as possible who are incapable of critical thinking anymore, because it isn't taught."

I'm quoting him. I wouldn't say "polluted, perverted way of thinking." It's just political ideology. You locate yourself at the extreme if you look across the spectrum and see the other guy as "polluted" and "perverted." It would be nice, wouldn't it, to live in the imagined golden age when people were capable of critical thinking, because people were taught critical thinking? But in the real world, ideas and attitudes have always spread through intuitive responses to other people expressing ideas. That's the core experience of human life. One of the standard expressions that works in transferring the ideas is to convey the feeling that your ideas are sober and reasonable and the product of critical thinking and those other people are oozing some horrible disease. Ugh! Toxic! That's how Rush haters would like you to react to Rush. Don't even listen, you might catch it. And that's what Rush is saying about the foul, unwholesome liberals. 

Jeb follows Trump on Twitter but Trump doesn't follow Jeb.

AP took the trouble to analyze who candidates follow on Twitter and whether they follow each other. 

But what does it mean? How does a candidate decide whom to follow when it's public information? It can't really be that these are the people whose tweets the candidate wants to read. These are just the people the candidate's people want to link to her or him:

Until a few weeks ago, Clinton almost exclusively followed campaign-related accounts and staff. Since then, she's expanded her follow list and added several new celebrities.

Hillary doesn't follow her rivals. She doesn't follow reporters or media accounts, probably, I'm guessing, because she doesn't want to reveal favorites. Why follow celebrities? Because they give money and/or because they make her seem fun? Katy Perry... Mariah Carey... Marc Anthony...

Trump and Hillary have the most followers (almost the same number, 4.3 million). Trump follows people connected to his business dealings, but also some celebrities — Steven Tyler... Magic Johnson...

Who follows the most people? Ted Cruz! He follows 13,840... so you know he's not reading the feed

Last account followed: Lauren Beieler (@laurenbeeliner), whose profile reads, "I heart Jesus. Plain and simple. and i like cheese. A lot."

Whom he follows: Lots and lots of people who have one or more of the following as a profile or background photo: an American flag, a Confederate flag, a Don't Tread on Me Flag or a bald eagle.

Whom he doesn't follow: Nonconservatives, except President Barack Obama — a rare exception.

Notables: Old Southern Moonshine Revival (@OSMRmusic), Classic Rock Lyrics (@RockWsdm)

I don't know. Ted's a genius — maybe he does read it all. His spokesman says he "does follow Twitter virtually all day long between events."

You know that man that you hate? You look more like him every day. ~ Janes Addiction, Idiots Rule

— Classic Rock Lyrics (@RockWsdm) October 5, 2015

"It feels to me like a lot of people talking and nobody listening. It’s just a little quippy for me."

Says Aaron Sorkin, about Twitter, after Ana Marie Cox prompts him to think about Twitter as a "shared experience" similar to the traditional function of television (that "national hearth").