"Smackdown" Global Warming "Prizefight"?
Dana Milbank's summary of yesterday's "conversation" between John Kerry and Newt Gingrigh on global warming is a must read. The debate/conversation/discuss
ion/dialogue (as it was variously referred to in the proceedings), was sponsored by New York University's John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress. As Professor Light noted in his introduction, this was billed as a "smackdown" and a "prizefight" by a variety of sources prior to the event (although, it was designed as nothing of the sort). Video feed is available.
: John Kerry, Newt Gingrich, Global Warming
Gingrich's strategy in this debate reminds me of the one used by civil rights leader
James Farmer in his 1962 debate with Malcolm X, held at Cornell University. As Farmer explains in his autobiography,
Laybear The Heart:
My plan was to give Malcolm's speech. In other words, to catalogue the crimes committed against blacks throughout history. I knew the speech well enough almost to give it word-for-word, softening the language here and there, of course. Then I would go into my solution, the CORE solution, the nonviolent direct action solution for a new America and a new world, finally turning the platform over to Malcolm, demanding not a restatement of the diagnosis, but instead his prescription for a cure.
Of course, preemption by agreement is not an uncommon tactic in academic debate competitions. It is, however, relatively unusual in public debates among seemingly disparate opinion makers. When it happens we are often witness to a real policy debate (as we were yesterday).
Here's the question: What would have happened if John Kerry had given the opening speech?
