Yesterday, the leaders of the three largest political parties in the UK engaged in a live televised election debate for the first time in history. Most commentators seem to agree that Nick Clegg, the leader of Britain's perennial third party the Liberal Democrats, made the best impression in yesterday's first of three weekly debates leading up to the general election on May 6. The progressive-leaning Guardian even goes so far as to claim that he is now prime ministerial material.

This being Metafilter you will undoubtedly ask, "how does Cory Doctorow figure into all of this?" Well, he agrees with Nick on the Digital Economy Act. Then again, Nick is agreed with quite a lot.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Apr 16, 2010 - 54 comments

Rhetorical Questions. "Who will win the presidential debates? What does each candidate’s use of words say about how he would govern as president? Can Obama’s rhetorical skills lift him to the heights of Lincoln, FDR, and Reagan—or will his speechmaking do him in? After watching all 47 (!) of the primary season’s debates, our correspondent has the answers—and some harsh criticism for the moderators."
posted by chunking express on Aug 15, 2008 - 86 comments

Well, shit. Apparently NASA uses Photoshop to analyze photographs taken by spacecraft.
posted by kenko on Oct 28, 2004 - 25 comments

The amazing debate spotter text analysis tool is a fun way to look at the words our leaders use. Bush had a lot of obvious ones: hard work, wrong time, wrong place, he forgot poland. Kerry name dropped Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden quite a bit and had the highest kill ratio. Here's Cameron's post about how it came to be and how it works. Politics in the age of the internet are certainly an interesting time.
posted by mathowie on Oct 1, 2004 - 36 comments

An excellent WashPost primer on the lies each candidate is currently telling about the other, and how they hold up to reality. Also, enjoy the many euphemisms employed to avoid the "L" word: (Misleading. Inaccurate. Oversimplified. Exaggerated. Carefully selected. Unfair. etc etc) Who will be the first mainstream media outlet to state plainly that a politician has told a lie? Login: shutyomouf@hotmail.com - pw:shaftbaby)
posted by luser on Sep 30, 2004 - 6 comments

Life imitates parody of life. Much like last night's Daily Show segment mocking the idea of pre-written post-debate analysis, here's the Associated Press' post-debate summary. And not a second too soon, what with the debate not starting for another five hours or so.
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Sep 30, 2004 - 46 comments

Al Gore on tomorrow's Bush-Kerry duel: The debate tomorrow should not seek to discover which candidate would be more fun to have a beer with. As Jon Stewart of the "The Daily Show'' nicely put in 2000, "I want my president to be the designated driver.''
posted by CunningLinguist on Sep 29, 2004 - 37 comments

Turnabout hyperbole fair play? Boy, it's a good thing there weren't a lot of people going around saying terrorists would want John Kerry to win the election or anything silly like that.
posted by XQUZYPHYR on Mar 17, 2004 - 19 comments

Vice Presidential Debates: Though I disagree with everything he stands for, Dick Cheney came off as a much more eloquent and intelligent individual than did George W. Bush. This raises an interesting question - should GWB win the election, who will really be running the country?
posted by aladfar on Oct 5, 2000 - 14 comments

Arrggg!!! LA NBC is showing baseball! I should have figured that people in Southern California would be more interested in watching sports than the debates.
posted by Brilliantcrank on Oct 3, 2000 - 7 comments

Salon lists ten questions that won't be asked at the debates and I find them pretty tame, with a few exceptions. Instead of emailing the author with questions you'd like to see I'd rather read what the people here have to say.
posted by skallas on Oct 2, 2000 - 15 comments

Reuters 09/22 6:34PM -- NBC, which in August bid for the exclusive right to host a presidential debate, said on Friday it would broadcast a baseball game instead of the first showdown between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush. "We have a contract with major-league baseball. You don't seriously think we have any interest in democracy, do you?,'' said NBC spokeswoman Barbara Levin. "If we were offerred more than the value of the baseball contract, we would be televising it.''
posted by sudama on Sep 22, 2000 - 6 comments

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: GORE MOLE SUSPECTED TO HAVE INFILTRATED BUSH CAMPAIGN; FBI MOVES IN; DEBATE PREP TAPE EXPOSED BREACH This could be big. I remember when I read about the whole Moncia dress incident on the Drudge Report and look what happened... I hope to god it is not true, I couldn't stand Bush winning because of something like this.

PS, don't yell at me for the caps, it's Drudge. What do you expect?
posted by Brilliantcrank on Sep 22, 2000 - 5 comments

Maybe Dubya needs a pinch-hitter to take his place opposite Gore at the debates planned by the Commission on Presidential Debates.
posted by harmful on Sep 7, 2000 - 3 comments