The Young Turks

THE DEBATE

Gibson: "So, Osama, I mean, Obama, where’s your American lapel pin? Oh, my, Gawd, you must, like, despise our country. Why don’t you go put on a burka, you Jew."

Stephanopolous: "Hussein! Yeah, you! Go to church much? How’s your black preacher boyfriend? You know you’re totally gay."

Gibson: "Whatever, is it just because you’re so ghetto, Obama? I mean, wasn’t your mom, like, this poor, single, welfare mom or something. Totally lame. Did she smoke crack, too?"

Stephanopolous: "Just because you got straight A’s and went to all those stuck-up schools and worked hard, you think you think you’re better than us, but you are just retarded."

Gibson: "Oh, you want to talk about ‘the issues.’ Okay, well, what’s with the freaky, hippie neighbor? Are you guys going bomb us, too? Gawd, you’re such a fascist."

Stephanopolous: "Hey, Obama, you better promise you’re not going to raise taxes. We will so end you if you do. We are so going to flash pictures of you and your pedaphile priest boyfriend all over. Promise, right now, promise or you are DFL."

Gibson: "Osama, Osama, is that your real wig or is that your mom’s chest hair? Fatso."

Mean Girl Rule #1: It doesn’t have to make the slightest sense or be at all truthful. You can call your victim a black Christian radical, a Muslim terrorist, a Jewish intellectual, a godless atheist – it all works.

Mean Girl Rule #2: It doesn’t matter who you are or what you believe. It’s all about who you hang out with and what they wore 30 years ago.

Mean Girl Rule #3: It better be interesting fast or I’m going to change the channel to "Real Housewives of Orange County."

Mean Girl Rule #4: Don’t forget the accessories, and the hair. They matter.

Mean Girl Rule #5: Insinuate, insinuate, insinuate. Then, bitch-slap away.

You boys may not be well-versed in "mean girl" tactics – thank God – but I have to say that when you’re socialized to never physically or directly express aggression, you gossip. Look at the original mean girl, Karl Rove.

Yet, however ludicrous the questions, however nasty the insinuations, the job of Democrats is to reclaim the debate. When asked if he would raise taxes, Obama should have said, "Hell, yes! How do you think we’re going to get out of this fiscal disaster the feckless Republicans have dumped on us and our children?" Most Americans understand that deficits actually do matter. When you run up your credit card bill, it is painful to confront your own excess and take control, but when somebody else maxes out your card for a no-good reason like the Iraq occupation, then passes the debt onto you and your kids, well, that’s just literally criminal. Americans need to take back our country from these robber barons, but first we need to take back the conversation from the corporate media. Besides, Gibson and Stephanopholous are just wanna-be dweebs, like totally.