Bregmata

I watches the Election 2008 Leaders’ Debate on television last night.

I was incredibly disappointed.

The participants engaged in constant ad homined attacks, particularly on the Prime Minister. The media pundits loved it, just as they loved it when there was just unintelligible noise when everyone was talking at the same time. I do not recognise either situation as debate.

What I was hoping for was for each leader to articulate their party’s policies, and for some sort of discussion on the relative merits and faults of these policies. What I got was a bunch of kids calling names and trying to get the last word in edgewise, accompanied by obvious and sordid attempts at image manipulation.

I feel the world was left a little worse after the debate rather than a little better.