Policy trumps politics: 90 seconds vs. 53 seconds

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It's not as if we needed another example of how "politics" gets in the way of "policy", right?

One of the big stories in the past few days has been the egregious lack of air time Congressman Ron Paul received in the CBS Republican Primary debate Saturday night. Rep. Paul received (by many, non-scientific accounts) roughly 90 seconds of air time during a 60 minute, nationally televised debate to express his views while other candidates received as much as 7 minutes. Essentially there were a handful of candidates that got a lot of time (the "popular kids") and a handful that didn't (the "nerds").

This is troubling. Ninety seconds is not a long time. In a debate the previous week, the moderators spent 53 seconds on Texas governor Rick Perry fumbling his way through a botched response to a question they asked him three times. Three times!

Politics, as always, are getting in the way of policy. The American public deserves to hear the views and policies of ALL the candidates in the debate, not just two or three who are chosen to get more air time than the others. Valid ideas are pushed aside because media outlets are increasing becoming political entities forcing their opinions through selective coverage. Unfortunately, nothing new here.

Doesn't seem very transparent, does it?