CNN in correlation with YouTube put together one of the most diabolically bad formats for a debate that we have seen in our lives. Off the bat, the YouTube debate was a terrible idea because it uses YouTube, a video uploading site notorious for its terrible image and sound quality. Almost all the submitted videos had poor lighting and even poorer camera angles. Besides that, nobody wants to watch videos played on a projector screen from their TV.

If they wanted videos submitted from American citizens, they should have sent them directly to CNN. I doubt that anyone would have been enticed by that domain name enough to watch the debate. “YOUTUBE! I know what that is! Politics are interesting to me now!” It was a stab at ratings (which we bet failed) as well as a weak attempt to connect to the average person.

As if that weren’t enough, the videos that were picked were absolutely awful, and oftentimes asked what was more or less the exact same question multiple times. Immigration was not mentioned at all last night, and we seriously doubt that none of these YouTube videos covered it. The worst was definitely the inarticulate boar who asked “Is the black peoples gonna get reparations for slavreey?” I did a little digging and looked into his youtube profile…it’s not surprising(look at his subscriptions). However the two stereotypical southern men from Tennessee, and a man with a gun for a baby take a close second and third.

CNN did a terrible job with organizing things. They had cameramen fidgeting around behind the candidates, the three top tier candidates all next to each other in the middle of the forum, and split the time for answering questions so unevenly that Mike Gravel hardly had a chance to get two sentences out of his mouth. How can anyone expect long shot candidates to get attention when they can’t get a decent minute on television to talk?

Much of the debate was more like a joke, with kindergarten exercises like “Say something nice about the person to your left” or “Who was your favorite teacher and why?” I also would like to point out that Gravel was placed on the far right. Not so subtle, CNN. There was also a black woman making a ridiculous smile and squinting her eyes and a young child that ran across the screen yelling “Go Democrats!” And how could I even forget this video of a snowman concerned with global warming? I was sincerely surprised when no one said they had a comprehensive migration plan for the snowman population in the summertime, with heavy international cooperation with Canada.

Most commentaries we read were biased as usual, although they were especially cruel in their bashing of lower candidates because Hillary and Edwards didn’t show enough butt to kiss. I could hardly believe that a Time magazine writer could compare Bill Richardson to The Thing from the Fantastic Four. A few noted the same grave flaws that we did.

We liked a few things about the debate. There was a small portion of well posed questions with honest answers. A few of the less loved candidates got their moment in the sun, Richardson and Kucinich, but especially Joe Biden, who sent off more zingers than anyone else that night. But how about next time there’s a debate, we have the candidates go over issue positions, not just take their time to blurb on a message they have? And wouldn’t it be wacky if we rewarded answering the question satisfactorily, like with some sort of debate points?