What's Important to Republicans (Update)

This one is just too easy to pass up.

I'm not sure why but I don't watch debates. I really haven't watched one since 2000. It's probably a combination of already knowing who I'm going to vote for and not having the attention span to watch. I'm terrible at TV and movies. I'm just now getting back into movie watching mode. I went years without going to the movies.

Anyway, David Brooks writes last night after watching the Hillary/Obama debate about what is really important.

We may not like it, but issues like Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and the Tuzla airport will be important in the fall. Remember how George H.W. Bush toured flag factories to expose Michael Dukakis. It’s legitimate to see how the candidates will respond to these sorts of symbolic issues.

Yes, after five years in Iraq with no end in sight; the person responsible for 9/11 still running free; the largest deficit in our nation's history; the weakest dollar in our nation's history; $4 gasoline; a president with the lowest approval ratings in three generations; a housing crisis about to explode and an economic recession, it's questions about flag lapels and preachers that are important. In the Republican Fantasy World these are the important issues. Whatever it is the GOP can use to distract people away from the issues really affecting our country is their modus operandi. There's no need to talk about all of Bush's and the Republican's failures, let's talk about who are true patriots and who's not. Let's talk about who has the craziest preacher, unless Mitt Romney is the VP then church membership once again becomes a personal issue respected by the separation of church and state. Anything that may bring up the fact that Bush has a 28% approval rating and that 81% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track is a diversion from the important questions of Jeremiah Wright, flag lapels and Tuzla airport.

Even though Brooks says it's a "journalist’s job is to make politicians uncomfortable, to explore evasions, contradictions and vulnerabilities," he means of course in the realm of who wears a pin on their jacket and not who has the answers to the mess the GOP has put us in. To do that would be un-patriotic. Remember, what's important for Republicans is that we forget the last 8 years.

*Update:

Senator Obama's response to what many perceived to be one of the worst "debates" of the season is below. The reaction from Republican circles is that the debate was "excellent." Mainly because there where very little questions about actual policy substance and mostly questions asking the candidates to refute right wing talking points. Those supporting Obama don't flock to him because of what the right wing says about him, they flock to him in numbers not seen since Kennedy because of his ability to want to take our national political discussion away from talking points and into substance. Obama believes that people are hungry for change and not that people are inherently stupid and unable to make decisions for themselves like the right wing insists. If anything this clip shows that Obama is not an old geezer singing hymns about bombing Iran like his competition is. He's actually got a little coolness about him.