If this really is what US citizens want, they would fall asleep in a German TV debate. I have to admit that it frightens me to see this opener as it epitomizes the emptiness of a huge part of US politics.

If anthropologists found a tribe where chiefs were elected every couple years, but always implemented the same policies regardless, and the literal words everyone involved used treated it as an event of apocalyptic importance even as they gave every sign of treating it as an entertainment event, we wouldn’t think they were dumb; we’d appreciate their sense of humor and maybe even interpret the farce elections as a creative way of defusing social tensions. (We could note how the narrow range of policies that gets enacted reflect the interests of a ruling clique as well, and yet recognize that this was an orthogonal issue.) Why not extend the same charity to our own culture?

It’s real serious may be conservative (in policy), without being retrograde and out.The problem, the problem is that the only politician to make sure you get the POWER goes astray in speeches used to inréresser all morons and illiterates who never go to the polls to vote, because they have never interrested to society or theircountry or they simply do not know what the plotique can use their. The policiticientests too to please the mass base in the manner of Tweeter! We have the politicians we deserve, because we do not criticize and say nothing more intelligent we become intellectually lazy … 
C’est vrais sérieusement on peut être conservateur (en Politique), sans être rétrograde ou arrièré. Le problème, le problème est que l’homme politique pour uniquement être sur d’obtenir le POUVOIR se fourvoie dans des discours servant à inréresser tout les abrutis et les illéttrés qui ne vont jamais aux urnes voter, parcequ’ils ne se sont jamais intérressés à la société ou à leurs Pays ou tout simplement ils ne savent plus à quoi la plotique peut leurs servir. Les policiticien essais trop de plaire à la masse de base à la manière de Tweeter! Nous avons les Politiciens que nous méritons, car nous ne disons et ne critiquons plus rien de intelligente, nous devenons paresseux intellectuellement  …

http://www.developpement-affaires.com 

I think you can find quite a few people with good morals who still believe in the death penalty (although you will find that many of them are reasonably uncertain about it), or to advocate that the overall results of government taking over the healthcare business will be worse than the alternative. Even the hardcore Republicans do not want sick people to die in the streets, just like liberals don’t enjoy abortions. We can disagree about likely results of policy without having to get into morals and accusations of barbarism.

As for the anti-gay thing – my point was that from the reports I have read there were more people in the audience telling the boo-ers to shut up than there were people booing. I hate the anti-homosexual baggage the religious right is dragging along – I still don’t get why they hate gays more than they hate me as an atheist.

But when only one party is even making noises about taking government spending seriously… given the current track record of Democrats on gay rights (ie, baby steps, if that) I’ll have to vote my fiscal conscience.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MiXN_GImng#t=12s

For my part, I not only find it sensationalistic, but further, it’s a less dignified and serious manner to conduct the debates.  Of course, I’m completely willing to acknoledge that my notions of “seriousness” and “dignified” might just be a form of elitism and an expectation of the particular frameworks I’ve grown accustomed to. 

As an aside and possibly obvious point, the flash and the glitz which gives this opener all the suspense of a Who Wants to Beat a Millionaire bit seems to me to be the product of producers who see the success of major network programming and strive to replicate it, appropriate or not.  We can all decry the vacuous, superficial nature of these shows which showcase the worst rather than the best of us, but it sells.  And maybe that’s because that all they’re selling, but they definitely count it as a success all the same.

The problem is that an opener like this is a signifier.  In itself, who cares?  Who cares about the superficiality of an introduction?  Well, those who think our political process deserves more respect do, but I’m not sure that that’s the real problem here.  At issue for me is the lack of actual debating, a lack of real issues being discussed.  Unfortunately, as you’re right to suggest, this style of introduction signifies a derth of substance to follow, full of more this pagaentry than actual debating.