Presidential debates? Live coverage? Emmy awards? Oh the humanity!

The first debate between Bush & Kerry will be interrupting your must-see-tv tonite, though given the guidelines set forth by the so-called Commision on Presidential debates, what you're likely to see will probably be as scripted as anything you'd normally watch on ER. While the always frustrating punditry will likely focus on who was sweating & who managed not to drool, I'll be watching to see if either candidate can muster up anything of actual worth and/or truth. Foreign policy is the central theme of this first debate, so expect Dubya to be wearing Rove-colored sunglasses while Kerry does his best to hammer away at what a quagmire Iraq has become thanks largely to the bungling of President Bush & the rest of the neo-cons.

Following the 90 minute televised debate, The Daily Show will be providing live coverage at its regular time of 11pm ET/10pm CT on Comedy Central. On last nite's Daily, host Jon Stewart mentioned how Fox's Bill O'Reilly referred to Stewart's viewers as "stoned slackers" last week. Apparently, they're both high & well informed, at least according to a recent study from the Annenberg Policy Center that shows that Daily Show viewers are actually quite knowledgeable about the presidential race (via Business Journal Online). Heads up via NYT magazine cover girl Wonkette.

MP3 George W. Bush on the '02 Iraq resolution
MP3 John Kerry on the '02 Iraq resolution

The good folks over at the Majority Report have provided the above bits of audio, which were recorded around the time of the initial congressional vote to give Bush the authority to use force in Iraq. At the time, Bush needed the authority to use force in order to get weapons inspectors back into the country - "to keep the peace," not to go to war. And that's why Kerry voted for the initial resolution, but refused to vote for the second resolution (which was going to pass with or without him) once it was clear that Bush was hellbent on invasion. Flip-flop my ass - Kerry has been consistent.

MP3 Majority Report - David O. Russell interview

Tuesday's edition of Air America's Majority Report was missing birthday girl (happy 40th!) Janeane Garofalo, but her co-host Sam Seder did interview director David O. Russell, whose new film I ♥ Huckabees opens in select cities tomorrow (next friday here in Mpls). In the interview, Russell talks about the short documentary he recently directed called Soldiers Pay, which was supposed to be a companion-piece to his last film, the 1999 gulf war extravaganza Three Kings, which was due to be re-released into theaters this fall (given the timely subject matter) to help hype an eventual new special edition dvd of the excellent film.

Soldiers Pay was going to be screened along with the feature & included as a special feature on the dvd, but Warner Brothers has shelved the doc due to its "hot button" political content (read the 9/3 E! News story). While the doc won't be included on the new Kings dvd, it is being shown in theaters around the country with the Robert Greenwald documentary Uncovered: The War on Iraq, and will be included on the dvd release of that film, due out October 19 (according to this 9/23 press release).

This entry was posted by mr gilbert at 9/30/2004 01:30:00 AM.