Election '08: 018

The Unaired Question:

Bob Schiefer: Recently, people have begun to talk about how the NBC program, "Heroes" has regained some of its season one excellence, but there are many here and on the Internet that still believe the show is clunky, uneven, and desperately trying to hold itself together.
Senator Obama your point.

OBAMA: Look, the show is going to have its problems as you have so eloquently put it, and I absolutely agree with you on those points, but I think America is at a point now where it has to tone down it's expectations for the show. (McCain blinks furiously.) I think it's time for America, just like when we spoke about the economy, to realize that we over the last several seasons have gone through the bad times, reality television, and have emerged with a string of excellent dramatic programming, but times are changing, and the old ideas are not working anymore, and when I'm the President, I will make sure to keep new ideas flowing.

McCAIN. Forget about what that guy said, he doesn't get it. He's not like you and me, he reads. What you have to realize that it's just good old fashioned entertainment for the people, for the people I've talked to around America at my town hall meetings, for guys like Joe the Plumber who work 10-12 hours a day and just want to go home and watch a simple television show about some folks who have more problems than we do, but at the end of the season save the world (Obama coughs) and when you look at it like that, you'll see that the show is a triumph.

OBAMA: There are two points here that I feel I should discuss. One: I read a lot, but I watch television as well, I watch Battlestar Galactica and Lost, and my wife watches Ugly Betty, but I think that an over-reliance on television is seriously hurting our children and that reading, while not a lost art form, should be encouraged. Point Two: Just because the characters on Heroes end up saving the world, doesn't mean that the way that they saved the world made sense, in any universe, and that 85% of the episodes were filled with plot holes and contrived characterizations and cliched dialogue.

McCAIN: You just don't get good television. I get good television.

OBAMA: That's untrue.

Schiefer: Good night America!